


The Eye of the Storm

by electricshoebox



Series: A Line in the Sand Series [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle Couple, Blood and Gore, Established Relationship, Family Issues, Found Family, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Relationship Issues, Relationship Negotiation, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoebox/pseuds/electricshoebox
Summary: Deacon's just like any other spy trying to have it all: juggling multiple identities, on thin ice with his boss, spreading himself too thin, and trying to help save the world. Perfect time to be figuring how to be in a relationship, too. As the Institute's shadow grows ever longer, Deacon tries to balance his life, his work, and his love, and figure out how to keep it all together.The sequel fic to A Line in the Sand.
Relationships: Deacon/Robert Joseph MacCready, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: A Line in the Sand Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931980
Comments: 47
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I come bearing a Christmas present! As promised, I finally bring the sequel to A Line in the Sand. I'm sorry it took me a few months to get it off the ground, I hope you'll find it to be worth the wait. As before, I'm not going to put up an official chapter count because it just keeps changing every time I revise my outline. It stands around 14 - 15 chapters right now. I don't think it'll be as long as the first fic. But I didn't think that one would be as long as it was either, lol. Anyway! Consider this chapter something of a thesis statement, trying to hint at things to come. I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> My beta extraordinaire for this project is once again the indomitable **serenityfails**. Thanks once again to them for their patient editing. 
> 
> Warnings: some graphic but canon-typical blood, gore, and violence in the first scene (if you want to just skip past most of it, all you really need to know is that it's a shootout with Gunners, and you can skip to "Deacon looks over at the doorway"), and some minor alcohol consumption.

“On your left!”

Deacon crouches back behind a splintered reception desk as he shouts across the lobby. He trains Deliverer over what’s left of the counter, aiming for the Gunner in the doorway. But before he can pull the trigger, the butt of MacCready’s rifle slams into the Gunner’s forehead, cracking it open like an overripe melon. Deacon winces at the loud crunch of bone. The Gunner’s pipe pistol clatters to the floor, and MacCready’s boot shoves him out into the hallway beyond the door as he crumples. MacCready then whips back against the wall, out of sight. He peeks carefully around the open door and out into the hall, looks back to nod at Deacon, and then shoulders around the door, rifle at the ready. As he goes, footsteps rumble overhead, the only warning Deacon gets before a shot whizzes past his shoulder and tears a hole through the drywall behind him. He ducks back behind the edge of the desk. 

So, that balcony above him wasn’t just for show. He fumbles for his bullets and reloads, counting through the casualties in his head. Two Gunners on the other side of the desk, dead. One in the corner across from him, dead. Two in the entryway that led them here, dead. One in the doorway, dead, and maybe more, though he hasn’t heard another shot from MacCready’s rifle. Can’t be that much more of them. They’re a few floors up in some highrise in the old Financial District, and while they hadn’t had a lot to go on, the map P.A.M. gave them showed this cramped little lobby, a short hallway, and a few offices. Apparently one of those offices was one floor up and open to said stupid, tiny lobby. Good to know. 

At least it was a stupid, tiny balcony, too, from what he’d glimpsed of it. Little room for more than one person to stand waiting for Deacon to poke his head back into their crosshairs. So there’s that. One last breath, and then he pushes to his feet and whirls around, pistol forward. 

The Gunner lifts a laser rifle, and Deacon has time to spot his bare arms, and the bare chest beneath. Nothing strapped there but suspenders. He angles his pistol and shoots before the Gunner can pull the trigger. His shot hits true, bursting through the Gunner’s chest at the same moment a second bullet splits his forehead. Blood sprays the wall behind him. The laser rifle slams down on the reception desk and then tips to the floor, landing at Deacon’s feet. 

Deacon looks over at the doorway. MacCready’s leaning around the doorjamb, lowering his scope, already looking back. He slowly breaks into a grin.

“You’re getting better,” MacCready says, straightening. His voice is loud in the sudden stillness.

“Oh, high praise,” Deacon says, but he’s grinning back. He kicks the laser rifle to the side and leans on the desk for a moment.

MacCready motions to the hallway behind him. “Checked the rest. It’s clear. Shall we?” 

Deacon reaches into his back pocket for the RFID card P.A.M. gave him. He rounds the desk, and climbs over the sprawled Gunner in the doorway and the puddle of blood pooling beneath his head. He looks away, wincing as he goes.

This is the third supply mission they’ve done together in the month since Deacon’s midnight run to Mercer, and it’s getting easier and easier to fall into step together. It still surprises Deacon every time he mentions these missions that MacCready just grabs his rifle and asks when they’re leaving. Like Deacon should assume he’s coming with. At this point, maybe he should.

It’s been… good. This month. Well, all right, if he’s being honest with himself — which is this new thing Deacon’s trying, because you know, new life-changing confession, new you — it’s been weird. Good weird. Weirdly good. But weird. 

He’s just not used to this. To doing this with someone else at his side, like a fixture, like a given. (Like a partner, his brain supplies, and the sharp swell of feeling in his chest at that thought nearly makes him trip as they walk down the hall.) MacCready’s tagged along to help clear a few runner’s routes, or swing a few dead drops. Or grab these supply caches P.A.M. keeps tracking down. Deacon’s followed along on settlement calls in return. Half the time, it just makes sense; do it all in one trip with an extra gun and an extra eye, split the take, finish the errands, and circle back home to Sanctuary. Do it all again a few days later. It’s good. It is. It’s a hell of an upgrade, actually. Front row seat to watching MacCready do what he does best, and a great view of his ass while he does it? Sign Deacon up. It’s just… a lot to get used to. 

“You gonna open this thing, or what?” MacCready’s voice cuts through his thoughts. They’ve come to a stop in front of what looks like a bare wall, if you don’t know to look for the hidden slit near the side, where the key card fits. MacCready leans his shoulders back against the wall on the other side. “I wanna get moving, I’m starving.” 

“You were the one that didn’t want to stop for breakfast,” Deacon says. He slides the card through, and the wall slides back to reveal a small room, hardly more than a janitor’s closet. Deacon looks back up to find MacCready smirking. 

“Yeah, well,” he says, pushing off the wall, “not my fault you look cute with pillow marks on your face. What was I supposed to do?” 

“Have some self-control?” 

“Where’s the fun in that?”

The corner of Deacon’s mouth lifts. They’d stayed over in Goodneighbor last night, where sharing one room didn’t get much attention, even if he knows they shouldn’t be making a habit of it. And god, yeah, that’s a upgrade, too — getting to wake up next to the man you’re head over heels for, even if it’s more often on the floor of some borrowed farmhouse room in one of the settlements than it is in an actual bed. 

Deacon turns his attention back to the storage room waiting in front of them. Shelves of ammo, medical supplies, and clothes line the walls. A few small pistols, clean and unused, lay on top of a drawer unit. Even some old packages of food are stacked closer to the door, right next to the real prize: two shiny new stealth boys. Deacon sets his pack down on top of the drawer unit and pulls it open. He reaches for the first aid kit on the bottom of one of the shelves first.

Next to him, MacCready fingers the collar of a folded suit jacket, dusty black, sitting on the top of a pile of other clothes. “They really did put a little of everything in these caches, huh?”

Deacon glances over as he drops a few stimpaks into his pack next. “Never know when you might need an emergency suit. Or—” He squints at the pile. “Or emergency… Nuka Cola t-shirt.”

MacCready curls his fingers around the top of a fedora sitting behind the clothes. “Yeah, I can see how this hat might really turn the tide for you guys." 

"I seem to recall a particular time in Diamond City where a hat and a little quick change absolutely turned the tide. You may remember you were running for your life from the Gunners. Or were you not paying attention?” Deacon grabs the last two stimpaks, dropping them in with the rest. Then he raises his eyebrows at MacCready.

MacCready slowly grins. “Oh, I was paying attention." 

Then, in one swift, coordinated movement, MacCready pulls his usual hat off his head and rolls the fedora brim-over-top up his other arm, catching it smoothly on the crown of his head. His grin widens. "How’s that for a quick change?”

Oh, well that’s just fucking unfair.

Deacon abandons his pack, and MacCready just watches him, smug, from under the brim of the hat. Deacon crowds him back, pressing his hands to the wall on either side of MacCready’s head. MacCready’s eyes glint, his hands finding Deacon’s waist under the hem of his jacket. 

“I’ll show you a quick change,” Deacon says, his voice low. He pulls one hand away to slide it up MacCready’s chest, over the folds of his duster. Deacon leans close, close enough that he could brush his nose against MacCready’s cheek if he wanted, and rests a hand on his shoulder. And waits. MacCready furrows his brow a little, and starts to lean forward. Deacon snatches the hat off his head and plops it down on his own, then backs away laughing. 

MacCready lunges after him. Deacon ducks under his hand, then swivels back when the other hand snatches at his coat sleeve. He pulls the fedora off his head and holds it out of reach for a moment, grinning down into MacCready’s scowling face. 

Then MacCready digs his fingers into Deacon’s sides, right into the ticklish spot on either side, the coat and flannel beneath doing nothing to dull the feeling. Deacon yelps and crumples, and MacCready snatches the hat out of his hand, whooping in triumph. 

Deacon shakes his head, but doesn’t fight off the smile. “You play dirty.” 

MacCready leans down to pick up his usual hat, fallen to the floor in the scuffle, and plops the fedora back on in its place. “Only way to win. You’re one to talk.” 

Deacon chuckles again, turning back to his pack. “Fine, fine, hat’s all yours. Help me get the rest of this.” 

MacCready just keeps grinning as he lifts up the pile of clothes. 

\----

The Church is crowded when they arrive. Crowded by Railroad standards, anyway, which means Glory isn’t out punching something full of holes, and two of the newer agents are chatting in the corner, and Tom’s mid-rant to the newest of all, an olive-skinned woman with salt-and-pepper hair buzzed down to the scalp, and arms like concrete blocks. She’d chosen Shadow for a codename, which made Deacon roll his eyes a little, but not where she could see, because again: arms like concrete blocks. Carrington had grumbled about yet another body in HQ, but it was the only way to fill out the guard rotation they’d started in the steeple. It wasn’t exactly like Carrington was volunteering for a shift.

“Who wants presents?” Deacon calls as he lugs his pack down the stairs, MacCready at his side. “Little early for Christmas, but I figure, hey, we’ve all been good this year.”

“Some more than others,” Carrington says. He gives Deacon a sour look, his eyes flicking to MacCready and back.

“Ah, that explains why Santa only gave me a lump of coal for you,” Deacon says. He slings the backpack down onto a chair behind Carrington’s gurney, smirking a little when he hears Glory smother a snort into her hand. 

Carrington curls his lip. “At least that might warm this place up.” 

Well, much as Deacon hates even thinking the words, Carrington’s not wrong. The November cold had set in hard, a chill seeping down through bricks. Carrington’s got a thick wool turtleneck peeking above the collar of his lab coat, and even Tinker Tom’s got a sweater pulled on over his overalls. Drummer Boy’s typing with leather gloves. And Desdemona has her hands cupped around a steaming coffee mug when she steps around to inspect the haul Deacon starts laying across the other chairs. 

“Even got a little something for you, dollface,” Deacon calls to Glory, slipping into his best radio play mobster voice. She raises an eyebrow at him from where she sits, her feet propped up on the corner of Drummer Boy’s desk. Deacon holds up a box of 5mm rounds, shaking them a little when she just stares at him. She sighs, lowers her feet, and marches over to swipe the box. 

“Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya,” Deacon says, still in the accent. 

Glory glances over Deacon’s shoulder at MacCready. “You’ve got to have found his off switch by now.”

“Still looking,” MacCready says, and Deacon looks back in time to catch him winking. 

“No love in this damn family,” Deacon says with a sigh. “I work my fingers to the bone shooting Gunners for you—”

“Oh, come on, that’s just a good Friday night,” Glory says over her shoulder as she slumps back into her abandoned chair. 

MacCready laughs behind him. “Now you’re talking.”

Deacon looks up at Glory as he starts stacking the rest of the ammo boxes next to his pack, mouth open to retort. Desdemona shoulders into view before he can. She’s frowning, her hands still tight around her coffee mug. Deacon sets the last box down and straightens, smile fading.

“Any word?” she says, clipped. 

“No.” 

Her frown deepens. “It’s been six days.” 

“Doesn’t mean he’s still inside.” Deacon reaches back into the pack, to keep his hands busy, and for an excuse to look away. He grabs one of the stealth boys next. “He could’ve gotten a settlement call on his way back—”

“Thought you’d been handling those, too,” she says flatly. 

Deacon grits his teeth and forces himself to set the stealth boy down very gently on the chair. He takes a breath. Then, keeping his tone as even as he can, he says, “Preston and MacCready have been handling them, or whoever else is around. But if it’s on the way, then yeah, I help. I’m a helper. See me? Right now? Helping?” He flicks his hand toward the array of supplies around him. “We’re just big helpers around here.” 

The corners of Desdemona’s mouth pinch in. She looks down at the chairs, and then pries one hand free of her mug. She grabs a box of 10mm rounds and places it on top of one of the stealth boys. “That needs to go to Stockton, if you’re still feeling helpful.” She turns away. “I want to know the minute Bullseye’s back.” 

“You’ll be the first,” Deacon says to her back. She circles around the war table and sets the mug down, leaning on the edge and looking down at the papers spread across it. She doesn’t reply. Deacon sighs. 

He turns to grab the supplies now designated for Stockton, only to find MacCready already holding them. MacCready purses his lips, and then flicks his gaze over to Desdemona. “I’ll wait upstairs. Little cold down here.” 

Deacon grimaces, opening his mouth to apologize. MacCready shakes his head. He gives Deacon a tight smile and then heads for the stairs. 

“Come on,” Glory’s voice comes, suddenly close behind him. Deacon hears bullets rattling in their boxes, and looks back to find her stacking them in her arms. “Help me clean up your mess, geez. You could’ve unloaded these right on the shelves, you know.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Deacon mumbles. He corrals the last stealth boy and the pistols in his arms, and follows Glory into the back hall, past the ratty mattresses in the corner. He empties his arms onto one of the shelves along the wall. 

“Getting tired of playing pinball yet?” Glory asks, squinting at the stacks of ammo in front of her and then lifting one of the boxes she’s carrying to join them. 

Deacon pokes at one of the pistols until it sits at the same angle as the others. He shrugs one shoulder. “I mean, given the alternative? You’d rather Bullseye didn’t take every precaution?” 

“You _would_ be in favor of anything that makes him more paranoid,” she says, adding another box to the stack. She glances at him, and then sighs. “All right, fine, I’ll say it. Yes, Deacon, Bullseye using you as his messenger so he doesn’t risk the Institute tracking him here is smart and a good idea. Happy?” 

He smirks. “Very.” 

She rolls her eyes. “I just wish I didn’t have to be trapped in here while she’s in a _mood_ about it.” 

“You can leave.” 

“Yeah, but — I mean, you know how it is. Less traffic while Patriot’s biding his time, only so many rounds I can make.” She slips the last box onto the shelf. 

Deacon tilts his head. “You could come visit, you know. Sanctuary.” 

She looks up at him, breaking into a grin. “Why, Deacon, are you inviting me to your little love nest?” 

“Nope, invitation revoked.” 

She chuckles, her eyes straying back to the shelves. After a moment, she says, “It’s not about you. You know, Dez’s… mood.” 

“It’s kind of about me.” Deacon quirks his lips. 

Glory makes a face. “You know she wouldn’t actually care about MacCready helping, usually, it’s just that—well, you know.” She cuts herself off and shakes her head. 

Deacon raises his eyebrows. Glory glances at the doorway and lowers her voice. “The Libertalia thing.”

Right. Libertalia. Deacon had been a little busy, the night Bullseye went boat-hopping with a courser. He remembers the argument in the Castle the night before, five of them volleying back and forth about what to do. Whether to save the synth-turned-raider king. Too many questions. Too many options. Not enough time. 

He hadn’t gotten the whole story of what actually happened until later. According to Anthony, they’d blazed a path up to the hulking wreck of a ship out on the water, all the way to the top. He claims his options had narrowed down to killing the guy, or letting the courser take him. He says he tried to take the shot, but the courser used a recall code before Anthony could pull the trigger. Deacon believes him. He’s almost positive Desdemona doesn’t. 

It doesn’t help that that was the last time Anthony came to HQ in person. And he’s gone back to the Institute more and more often, between trips to the airport to make nice with the Brotherhood, and whatever bits of work he has to do for the Minutemen. 

“I still don’t fully know what they can do,” he’d said to Deacon, after his second trip in. “The technology they have… I can’t describe it, Deacon.” He’d sighed, and looked up with a determined sort of frown. “I know you only have my word to go on. So I’m not putting any of you at risk, not anymore than I already have. If they’re tracking me? Following me? I can’t take that chance. Not even with dead drops.” And so, ever since then, Deacon’s been the messenger, and Anthony keeps his distance, and Desdemona broods. 

And then there’s MacCready. Tagging along on Railroad missions, moving in and out of HQ like anyone else, but still little more than a tourist. Insult to injury, Deacon figures, where Desdemona’s concerned. But she’s not stupid enough to turn down the help, either. 

So here they are. 

“What do you think about it?” Deacon says, looking at Glory over the top of his shades.

Glory keeps her eyes on the shelves in front of her. “I think… Bullseye could’ve done better. But everyone fucks up. I think it says something he won’t come here. And I think I won’t hesitate to fuck him up, if I’m wrong.” 

Deacon nods, resting a hand against one of the shelves. “And hey, now we have the ammo for it.” 

Glory gives him a little smile, then nudges him with her elbow. “So, when are we making things official with Mac?”

“What?”

She raises an eyebrow. “He’s here almost as much as you are. He’s doing all these runs—”

“He’s good with ‘tourist,’” Deacon cuts in. 

“He is, or you are?” 

Deacon presses his lips together. 

She holds her hands up. “All right, all right. Stop keeping him waiting, then.” 

\----

Deacon finds MacCready stretched out on his back across one of the broken pews in the Church’s main hall. He’s propped his feet up on one arm rest, a cigarette between his fingers. Smoke curls from his lips and up into the light reaching down from the ceiling.

“Wonder what the Old World people would think, seeing you smoking up at their God in his house,” Deacon says, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

“Is that what these places were? They thought God lived here?” MacCready says, turning his head a little. He takes another drag.

“Hell if I know. I’ve seen a lot of them called ‘House of God’ or whatever, so I’m guessing,” Deacon says with a shrug. He wanders closer, dropping his pack at the foot of the pew. “Shove over.”

MacCready rolls his eyes but slides his legs out of the way. Deacon sits down next to him, the pew creaking a little with the added weight, and as he settles, MacCready swings his legs back up to drop them across Deacon’s lap. Deacon sighs, but settles a hand on MacCready’s shin. 

“Think God’s got bigger problems than me smoking in his living room if you guys are squatting in his basement,” MacCready says, flashing Deacon a grin.

Deacon snorts, stretching his other arm across the back of the pew. “Not sure he’ll care if he’s keeping a bunch of skeletons down there anyway.”

MacCready studies him for a moment, exhaling off to the side. Finally, he says, “So, she’s still mad.”

Deacon picks at a loose thread near the inseam of MacCready’s pants. “It’ll blow over.”

“You keep saying that, but—”

“Bobby, it’s okay,” Deacon says, finally glancing up. He smirks and jerks his nose up toward the hole in the roof above them. “Not the end of the world, right?”

MacCready frowns. He takes one last drag and then sits up, stubbing out the cigarette butt against the edge of the pew’s bench seat. He flicks it away, then looks at Deacon again. “You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t bother you.” 

Deacon sighs and squeezes his thigh. “I’m not. It does bother me. But it’s not the first time I’ve gotten on her nerves. It won’t be the last.” 

“Deacon, if this is about me—”

“It’s not.” 

MacCready gives him a skeptical look. Deacon purses his lips and then tips his sunglasses down. “Stop worrying.” 

“I’m not _worrying_ , I’m—” 

“Now who’s pretending?” 

MacCready scoffs. “Excuse me for caring.” 

“Hey.” Deacon catches his hand. He presses a kiss against the knob of MacCready’s knuckle. MacCready watches him, and then sighs, his shoulders deflating a little with it. 

“Fine. I’ll drop it,” he says, gently tugging his hand away. “For now.” 

Deacon pats his thigh and then starts to slide out from under his legs. “Come on, let’s get to Bunker Hill before nightfall. I’ve had enough shootouts for one day, and I heard someone around here is starving.” 

“Not too late to just drop the stuff and swing back to Goodneighbor. The Rexford’s got, you know, actual walls, that actually keep out the cold,” MacCready says, swiveling his feet back to the ground.

“What good is you wearing eight layers of shirt if you’re still cold?” Deacon looks at him, amused. “I told you that duster needs to go—”

“Can it about the duster, it’s staying,” MacCready says. 

Deacon chuckles as he grabs his pack. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. Anyway, I know for a fact Savoldi’s got that beer you like. You got the supplies?” 

“Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on,” MacCready says, picking up the stealth boy and the box of rounds from the floor. 

“Not what you said last night.” Deacon smirks. 

MacCready rolls his eyes as he thrusts the supplies into Deacon’s hands. “ _Anyway_ , what’s the story this time, if they ask? We’re fresh off protecting a settlement? Heading out to one? Think we used raiders hitting Jamaica Plain last time.” 

A little spark of warmth flares under Deacon’s ribs every time MacCready remembers to give them a cover story on his own. It’s doused immediately by the guilt that follows, that they even need one. He shakes it off and pulls the strings of his pack tight to close it. “Could circle around the truth. Supply run in the city.” 

“Not really my usual. Joe knows that.” MacCready glances over his shoulder as they wander toward the door. 

“Right. Well, not exactly hard to believe another settlement got hit somewhere. Maybe Hangman’s, if they ask,” Deacon says. “They’re not going to pick it apart if they don’t have a reason to.” 

MacCready shrugs. “You’re the expert.” 

“Yeah,” Deacon says. He fights down the urge to sigh as they pass out into the courtyard. 

\----

The setting sun paints the top of Bunker Hill’s spire a burning red as Deacon leads MacCready toward the southern gate. There’s a caravan marching in ahead of them, brahmin lumbering up the steps under the weight of several bulging cloth bags. Deacon sees a few stalks of razorgrain peeking out of one, and another bears the lumpy shapes of gourds, likely the last of the season. He wonders if Joe will have gourd stew on the fire this time around, nice shipment like that pulling through. His stomach rumbles a little as he watches the bags shift on the brahmin’s back. Bunker Hill may not have Goodneighbor’s charm or luxury accommodations (luxury here meaning four solid walls and not wobbling wooden slats, along with a roof that doesn’t leak every time it rains), but nothing the Third Rail dubiously labels “food” holds a candle to the Savoldis’ stews, or the barbequed meat they serve on skewers in the summer. All right, maybe MacCready’s not the only one that’s hungry. 

Deacon nods to the guard as they pass inside the gate behind the brahmin. A couple of the settlement kids scamper by, skirting around the brahmin’s tail, and kicking up some of the brown hill grass packed down by too many hooves and too many feet. Deacon catches the flicker of a smile on MacCready’s lips as he watches the kids chase each other around the corner. Deacon lets their shoulders bump gently, natural enough to be coincidence if anyone’s looking, and MacCready’s smile widens a little. 

They find the bar mostly empty. If it hasn’t filled this close to the early November nightfall, it won’t. It means fewer eyes on them, then, and no one listening in through the walls upstairs. Good. 

MacCready sinks down into one of the barstools with a sigh, slinging his pack around to rest the straps on his thighs under the counter. Deacon takes the stool next to him, fishing along a side pocket in his own pack for one of his cap stashes. 

“MacCready! You’re becoming a real regular again,” Joe says with a smile. 

“You keep the good stuff coming, and I just might,” MacCready says, grinning back. 

“That offer still stands, you know. You ever want to get back in the caravan business…” 

“Think those days are behind me, buddy. But thanks all the same,” MacCready says. 

“General’s keeping you busy, huh?” 

“No shortage of raiders to run off his settlements. You know how it is.” 

“Do I ever.” Joe finally glances at Deacon. “And it’s… no, wait, don’t tell me. It’ll come to me.” He snaps his fingers. “Starts with an A, right? No, no, an O.” 

“It’s a C,” Deacon says, plastering on a grin. He dips into a softened accent, just enough flavor not to sound like himself. “Chris.” 

Joe snaps his fingers again. “Damn it, Chris, that’s right. I’ll get it next time. You boys in for the night?” 

Deacon nods. “No use pushing our luck in the dark.” 

“Smart man,” Joe says. He cranes his neck back and shouts toward the wooden canopy overhead. “Tony! Customers!” 

Footsteps stomp down the steps a moment later, and Tony Savoldi comes into a view, straightening his cap with one hand as he leans a broom against the counter with the other. “Heya, MacCready.” 

“How’s it going, Tony?” MacCready gives him a nod. 

“What’ll it be?” Tony circles around the counter. “One room? Two?”

“Two if you’ve got ‘em,” Deacon says, lifting the bag of caps onto the counter. He’s got at least three others stashed in different parts of his pack. You learn that trick quick, sleeping your nights in Bunker Hill. 

“Ten apiece,” Tony says. Deaon counts out the caps like he’s being careful with them, like they’re all he has. You learn that trick quick, too. 

Tony scrapes the caps into his palm and then turns toward a cork board on the back wall, studded with hooks. He plucks two sets of keys down and hands them over. Deacon passes a set to MacCready, and notices for the first time that MacCready’s looking at him, his lips downturned. Deacon looks back, smothering the urge to raise an eyebrow. 

“So, you bring your appetites with you?” Joe says, as Tony retreats back up the stairs with his broom. “Got a stew going if you’re hungry. Or plenty to drink if you’re thirsty.” 

“I’ll take a Stout, and a bowl,” Deacon says, flashing Joe a grin.

“Same for me,” MacCready says. Deacon waits for Joe to pull out the bottles and pop the caps, then wander behind the wall where Deacon knows he keeps his cookfire. Once he’s out of sight, Deacon turns back to MacCready and drops the accent. 

“What?” he whispers, glancing over the rim of his shades. 

The frown’s back. “Two rooms?” 

Deacon furrows his brow. “Yes?”

MacCready looks away and takes a drink. “I just— never mind.”

Deacon watches him for a moment. He watches him fiddle with the flat plastic circle of a keychain attached to his room key, then drop it on the counter to feel for his thigh pouch. MacCready dips his fingers in and pulls out a mostly-empty pack of cigarettes, and a matchbook. He still doesn’t meet Deacon’s eyes as he tips the pack toward him in offering. Deacon pulls one free and slips it between his lips.

“Just didn’t think we’d need two,” MacCready says, once he’s lit them both and taken a drag. He keeps his voice low. 

Joe ambles back out before Deacon can say anything, carrying two steaming bowls with spoons balanced against the rims. The earthy smell of the gourds cut sharply with garlic and some kind of meat reaches Deacon’s nose, and his stomach growls again. 

“Dig in,” Joe says, grinning again. One of the caravan guards takes a seat at the other end of the bar, and Joe leaves them to their stew. 

Deacon leans his head down enough that MacCready can see his eyes over the top of his sunglasses, if he ever looks up again. He keeps his voice level, casual, loud enough to sound conversational. He picks the accent back up. “I know you like to save caps, but one splurge won’t hurt.” 

MacCready does dart a glance up, taking another drag as he stirs his soup. 

“Just for tonight,” Deacon says, quieter. 

MacCready tips his head to the side, exhaling smoke across the counter. He taps his cigarette over one of the ashtrays and leaves it there. After a moment, he gives Deacon a nod, his eyes flicking up and then away again. “Yeah, sure.”

They eat in silence after that, with MacCready picking up and dropping threads of small talk with Joe here and there. Deacon leaves him to it, feeling off balance, unsure what it is he’s meant to say. They’d agreed to this, after all. Keeping things quiet in public. And wasn’t MacCready the one grumbling about the thin walls around here first?

Deacon lets it go and peeks around his shoulder at what he can see of the settlement, whenever it’ll look natural. Strings of subway lights click on overhead as the sun sinks, lighting the muddy ground in dim patches. The brahmin low softly a few stalls down, and Deacon sees another cookfire flare to life outside one of the shacks. The kids run by again, ducking between the poles of scaffolding around the side of the old monument, giggling and shrieking as they go. Traders and guards pass here and there, but no one lingers longer than it takes to throw down caps for a beer, and no one gives them more than a glance. When he hears the nearest gate creak closed, he lifts his bowl to his lips and drinks down the last of the broth. 

“I’m gonna pick up a few supplies and then turn in,” he says to MacCready, pushing the bowl away and swinging around on the stool. 

“Give me a minute, I’ll come with,” MacCready says, after he swallows down the dregs of his beer. 

Deacon pulls his shades a little lower again so MacCready can see him look pointedly down at his pack, then back up. “I’ve got this one.” 

Something crosses MacCready’s face, something that pinches the corners of his mouth in, something that makes his brows dip down, just a little. Something easy to miss, if you don’t spend the kind of time Deacon does staring at that face. He starts to ask. But then Joe’s there, stacking their empty bowls, corralling their spoons together. Deacon pushes his sunglasses back up his nose. MacCready pulls out his cigarettes again.

“It’s all right, I’ll remember the gumdrops this time,” Deacon says, for Joe’s benefit. For MacCready’s, he adds quietly, “Trust me.” 

MacCready lights his cigarette while Deacon leans down to open his pack and snatch out another pouch of caps. Around his first drag, MacCready says, “Fine. I want to head out first thing.” 

He sounds normal enough, but that look is still there. Deacon gives him a tiny salute. “Up with the sun, got it.” 

“Night, then.” 

“Sleep tight.” Deacon pulls the pack closed. As he straightens, he runs a hand along MacCready’s thigh, hiding the motion of it with the way he stands. MacCready’s head tilts a little toward Deacon, just enough for Deacon to see the frown ease. Deacon shoulders his pack and heads toward the market. 

\----

Deacon prefers the market crowded, if the name of the day’s game is blending in. Still, hitting the stalls right at dusk sometimes means better deals, if the traders are ready to close up shop and want you in and out quick. So Deb doesn’t haggle with him too much over the pair of stimpaks and the roll of gumdrops he asks for, mostly for show. Then a pack of cigarettes catches his eye on one of the shelves, and he thinks of the crumpled box in MacCready’s thigh pack. Deb tosses that down next to the stimpaks with a tired smile. Deacon counts out his caps, slow and careful. Deb counts them again. 

Deacon wanders toward the next stall. Carla’s behind the counter, puffing on a cigarette. She gives him a nod, and as he bends to look over what she’s spread across the counter, he shoots a glance toward Stockton’s stall. The old man still perches on his stool, head bowed over his ledger. He doesn’t look up, but Deacon knows he’s been seen. He lingers a minute, then wanders to the next stall, where Lucas Miller has greaves and leg guards laid out in a sloppy row. Deacon looks them over, taking his time. The caravan guards leaning on the wall behind Lucas watch him lazily. He moves on. 

When he finally reaches Stockton, he looks over the pieces of junk lined up on the counter’s edge, then says, “Got any Geiger counters?” 

“They’re in the shop,” Stockton says, eyes slipping up from the page and then back down. He scrawls something in the margin, then closes the cover with a soft thump. Deacon wonders where he got such a thing. The leather cover, supple blue, is worn at the edges, but otherwise clean of scuff marks. The paper’s browned a bit with age, but holds up beneath the sharp point of Stockton’s pen. It’s not the junk on the counter he’s tallying in there, Deacon knows. Stockton tucks it beneath the counter and lays his hands down carefully in its place. “I do have other supplies to clear out, if you’re interested.” 

Other supplies. Supplies that need to move. So, synths. Now? Anthony made it sound like Patriot was waiting to send any more while they pieced together some kind of jailbreak. 

“I could barter,” Deacon says, pulling the strap of his pack off his shoulder. He sets it down between his feet. “I think I might have some things you’ve been looking out for.” 

“Let’s see them.” 

Deacon leans down and rummages a little until he finds where the stealth boy and the ammo have shifted to. He places them between Stockton’s spread hands. 

“That will be sufficient,” Stockton says, after pulling the ammo box open to check its fill, like any other trader would. He puts them down below with the ledger, and straightens a moment later to set a small bag down in their place. “Three, this time.” 

Three synths waiting. Shit. That’s a lot to keep in Bunker Hill’s basement. Why would Patriot send that many now? 

“Any trouble with the acquisition?” Deacon asks, reaching to pull open the bag. 

“Didn’t find them in the usual spot,” Stockton says. “Stumbled on them en route.” 

Well, that would explain it. Not Patriot’s doing, then, most likely. He can’t know for sure until he asks Anthony, but Patriot always sends them the same way, straight for Diamond City, predictable enough for Stockton to run interference. So had this group gone rogue? He wonders how that might have gone down, if they’d broken off some kind of surface work crew or found a way out on their own. Either way, they’re beyond lucky the coursers didn’t nab them first. Unless… it wasn’t a coincidence that Stockton ran into them. 

“Didn’t see anything else while you were there?” Deacon says carefully. He leans over the counter like he’s looking into the bag, angling his sunglasses down, but keeping his eyes on Stockton.

Stockton shakes his head. “I looked carefully.” 

“No traps?” Deacon says. “Not often you find supplies just… waiting on the roadside, these days.” 

“I looked _very_ carefully.” 

“Got it,” Deacon says. No use pushing. He pulls the little bag closed and leans down to stuff it into his pack. “I’ll send my friends your way, if you’ve got more stock to clear out.” 

“I’ve got buyers,” Stockton says. His eyes dart to Deacon’s pack and then back. 

Deacon nods. “Right. Take care, then.” 

He finds himself looking more carefully over the faces he passes as he leaves the market this time, and as he follows the circle of shacks around the base of the monument until he reaches Savoldi’s bar again. No red flags, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone here that actually knows how to blend in. His eyes linger on every lone smoker leaning on the wall, everyone casually walking by alone. He doesn’t like this. 

MacCready’s left the bar by the time Deacon reaches it again. There’s a light under his door when Deacon climbs the stairs, though. Deacon pauses, and thinks of the cigarettes in his pack. A laugh, too loud, drifts up from the bar below, and he glances down over the railing to see a couple patrons on the stools, and a few of the traders walking by under the string lights. He sighs, and walks past MacCready’s room to his own door, locking it behind him when he slips inside. He tugs the chain of a small lamp in the corner, and looks around. 

The room is hardly bigger than a closet. A flat, thin mattress lays rigid across an old metal cot with a ratty blanket draped over it. A stepping stool serves as a nightstand, and a tiny table in the corner holds the room’s only lamp. A bucket sits underneath the legs, and against the wall, a single chair, the cushion rubbed so thin he can see the stuffing through the stretching threads. He sets his pack down next to the bed and then pries the bucket out from under the table. He puts it against the door, right beneath the knob, so it’ll rattle if someone tries to push the door open. That done, he sits down heavily on the mattress, wincing as the springs dig into his thighs, and drags his pack close again to pull out the bag Stockton had given him. 

Most of the inside is padding, a few empty cigarette cartons and candy wrappers. Deacon shakes the bag a little, and hears something rattle against one of the cartons. He pulls them out one by one until a holotape slides out of one of them and into his palm. There we go. He tries to bring up the monument’s whole plaza in his head, and the roads that branch out from the center. Hmm. There should be a dropbox closer to the water, on the eastern side of the hill, behind the apartments. They can swing past on the way out in the morning. 

He drops the tape back into the bag and sets it aside. Then he pulls off his sunglasses and lays them on the stool-turned-nightstand, rubbing his eyes. He pries his boots off with his toes, one at a time, and pulls Deliverer out of his waistband to slip it under the pillow. It’s too cold, now that the sun’s down, to think about taking off his coat. Or anything else, really. He’ll sleep in his clothes tonight.

He lays back on the mattress. Oh, good, it’s every inch as awful as it looks. He thinks of the bed in MacCready’s — in, well, their room, back at the house. 

_Come on, coward. Say it._

Back home. 

It is sort of becoming their room. Some of Deacon’s clothes have found their way into the drawers. But most of his wigs still sit on the shelves in his old room. His books sit one shelf below MacCready’s, but the rest of his little collection of tchotchkes — the few that don’t now sit somewhere in the living room or the kitchen — still stay above his wigs, in the old room. He never sleeps in there, though; not since they came back from the coast. Never really sleeps alone no matter where he is, lately. 

Maybe that’s why he finds himself shifting back and forth, restless. Well, that and all the springs sinking into his back. It’s not like it’s too quiet, here in this cardboard box of an inn room. The walls do nothing to keep out the laughter from the bar below, or the distant sound of a radio warbling out Bing Crosby, or the brahmin snorting and murmuring in their pens. He can even hear rustling next door, and something that sounds like a page turning. Deacon turns onto his side, the springs squeaking under him. He can see light winking through little slivers of space between the slats. 

Oh. Oh, was this why MacCready was annoyed? Because it’s really not that Deacon can’t sleep on his own, it’s just… it’s just better, when he doesn’t have to. 

Still, they know the rules. The lines they have to draw, out in the open. They know. They’d drawn them quietly together, between the sheets in Mercer safehouse, whispering in the soft light of an easy morning. They can’t always be seen together. Not like this. The Rexford is one thing, with its thick walls and closed hallways. Bunker Hill is another, when he can hear MacCready leaning against the wood, one room away. 

Deacon tries to picture it: duster hanging off the end of the bed, shoes kicked to the floor, MacCready sitting the wrong way across the bed with his back propped up. Deacon wonders which book he nabbed out of Deacon’s tiny collection this time – maybe the copy of _Oliver Twist_ Deacon had fished out from under a burnt bed frame outside Concord last week. He’d been making a habit of it, pilfering Deacon’s books. He doesn’t say anything, and they always reappear on the shelf. Sometimes, if Deacon catches him reading them, he’ll lean in, and try to read over MacCready’s shoulder until his eyes droop. Maybe murmur a few of the lines in stupid voices, just to get him to laugh.

Deacon reaches over toward the wall, wishing he could reach in, curl his hand around MacCready’s wrist, and tug him in close enough to do that now. But only the wood meets his palm. So instead, he knocks his knuckle quietly against the panel, in the rhythm they’d used on the stakeout in Quincy: two short raps, a pause, then one, another pause, then three. 

He hears a louder movement against the wall. After a moment, more knocking answers him, just as soft, in the same pattern. He closes his eyes and sighs, running his fingertips along the woodgrain. It’s another hour before he slips into a shallow sleep.

\----

They reach Concord in the early afternoon the next day. The moment they pass the Museum of Freedom in Concord's central square, and see the Minutemen patrolling the sidewalk ahead, MacCready lets out a long breath, and his shoulders smooth out under the straps of his pack. He plucks a cigarette out of the fresh pack Deacon slipped him that morning, and pauses on the edge of the road to drag a match along the sole of his boot.

And Deacon? Deacon looks up the hill under his shades and feels like he always does, coming back to Sanctuary: like a Nuka Cola someone's shaken until the fizz rockets to the top of the bottle, crackling just under the cap. He presses his fingers into his palms, like that's going to keep it from bubbling over.

They lost half an hour off the trip to a shootout with raiders on the edge of the city, and though both of them managed to dodge out of it without taking a bullet, Deacon left covered in sweat with his pack beating against his back as he ran. That sweat had cooled rapidly in the autumn wind, and his clothes still feel tacky and damp. His pack weighs on his shoulders, an ache burrowing in deep under the straps. Pain blossoms in the arches of his feet with every step. He knows it’ll feel like relief eventually, to step inside the house and drop his bag and find a clean rag to scrub away the dust from the road. But underneath it all is that unease, buzzing under his skin as they make the walk together, side by side, right in the open. 

So, he starts talking.

Two of the Minutemen are kneeling in the road under the old traffic lights over some kind of great brown lump. As they draw closer, Deacon sees antlers sprouting like tree branches from two limp heads. Two of the Minutemen are binding the hooves at each end. Two more stand on either side of the road, keeping watch. They shift their rifles forward as Deacon and MacCready start up the hill, but slowly relax when MacCready raises a hand in a short wave.

"I ever tell you about the time I got trapped in a barbershop by a radstag for half a day?" Deacon says as they step around the carcass and start up the hill toward the guard wall around Red Rocket.

MacCready laughs around a mouthful of smoke. "Trapped? Why didn't you just shoot it?"

"Right, so, picture this," Deacon says, lifting his hands in front of him to make a frame of them. MacCready smirks and takes another drag. "Me, a hell of a lot younger, still just a runner, still working on the whole 'aiming a gun and hitting the target' thing." He holds up a finger. "Don't say it."

MacCready snorts. "I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

They turn the corner, the road twisting until it hits the footbridge at the edge of the river. The feeling in Deacon's chest tightens. He keeps talking.

"Anyway, it's really early morning, like just barely dawn, and I'm coming back from a night run through Lexington, all by my lonesome. I'm trying to keep to the edge of town because I emptied my last clip trying to get us around some raiders on the way, and the safehouse didn't have anything that caliber to give me. So all I've got is a switchblade." Deacon closes his fist, miming the grip of the knife. Ahead of them, the front gates spread open.

MacCready gives him a look as he takes another drag, his boots sending a pebble flying down through the gaps in the wood, into the water below. "It really is a wonder you're still alive."

Deacon blows out a breath, looking away. "You're telling me."

MacCready frowns. "Crap. Sorry. I didn't mean—"

"No, you're right, it is," Deacon says, dropping his hand. "And this is one of the stupider ways I almost died."

MacCready gives him a look. "Almost _died_?"

"I'm getting there."

They pass the general store, and a few of the other shops. It's quiet in the street this time of day, and that helps, a little. No one else meets them on the sidewalk as they go.

"So, I'm almost past the edge of town, thinking I'm good. I head past this row of bushes, and it's still pretty dark, so I don't see that there's something crouching right behind them until it straightens up, and I just bump straight into it. Boom, radstag buck. Six-pointer, on both heads, huge rack. One of the glowy ones." Deacon spreads his hands out from either side of his head. "It looks at me, I look at it, and for a moment neither of us moves. And then it makes some kind of grunting noise, and I just _book_ it."

MacCready laughs. He puffs on the last of the cigarette and then tosses it to the ground as they stroll up the house’s front walkway. He smashes it with the toe of his boot. Then he rummages in his pocket for his key. 

"Of course you’d remember the huge rack," MacCready says, slipping the key in the lock.

"Look, when it’s barreling right for me — seriously, I was about five seconds from being shishka-Deacon.” Deacon steps inside behind MacCready as he laughs again. MacCready slips his rifle strap over his head, and Deacon hears it clatter against the wall as he hangs it up. Deacon dumps his pack down at the edge of the couch and starts pulling off his coat.

“So, it chases me, and I just sort of take every turn and alley I hit, until I see an open door and just make a break for it. Turns out it was—uh.”

A hand glides across Deacon’s back as soon as he pulls his coat free. He drops it over the top of the couch and turns. MacCready’s arms curl around his sides as he steps up close.

“Uh, hi,” Deacon says, as MacCready’s hands slide open across his back, hot through the flannel and the t-shirt beneath. MacCready’s shucked his hat, but hasn’t even bothered with anything else, not even the PipBoy now pressing lightly into Deacon’s ribs. 

“Hi. Let’s skip to the end,” MacCready says. He leans in closer, enough that their noses nearly brush, and Deacon’s breath catches. He can smell the smoke clinging to MacCready’s skin. 

“Rude,” Deacon says, but he’s starting to smile. Something slowly uncoils in his chest. He pushes his sunglasses up, then finally settles his hands on MacCready’s shoulders. 

“Usually.” MacCready grins back, his eyes dropping to Deacon’s mouth. 

“So,” Deacon says, clearing his throat, fingers bunching into the leather beneath them, “come here often?”

“Not often enough.” 

That’s all the warning he gets. MacCready ducks his head, catching Deacon’s lips in a firm kiss. Well, all right. He can get behind this. Deacon kisses back, freeing one hand to cradle MacCready’s jaw. The anxious hum in his head sinks away as his mind empties of everything that isn’t the heat of MacCready’s hands, or the wet slide of his lips. Deacon stumbles back a little, until the backs of his thighs collide with the couch. He’s not sure what exactly brought this on, but this is certainly one way to get out of his sticky, dusty clothes. One way to keep his head quiet. He’s not exactly going to complain.

MacCready nips at Deacon’s lower lip, his hands sliding higher. Deacon opens his mouth around a groan and MacCready pounces, deepening the kiss, robbing Deacon of thought altogether. 

And then someone’s knocking on the door. 

MacCready tears away with a growl that sends sparks flying down the back of Deacon’s neck, and does absolutely nothing to bring his brain back in on things. MacCready glares at the door. “Damn it!” 

Deacon laughs softly, his hands sliding back down to MacCready’s shoulders. “My, my, Mr. MacCready, such a filthy mouth.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” MacCready mutters, slowly stepping back, but not quite releasing his hold on Deacon’s flannel button-up. “You love it.”

“Prove it,” Deacon says, leaning back in to ghost a kiss against MacCready’s jaw. The knock comes again and he sighs. He swivels his head back around to look over MacCready’s shoulder. Through the thin slit of a window in the door, he spots a familiar head of black hair. 

MacCready groans and pushes out of Deacon’s grip. Deacon tries to smooth his shirt down, tipping his sunglasses back into place. 

MacCready yanks the door open. “Gotta tell you, boss, you got some kinda timing.”

“Fine, thanks, how are you?” Anthony says, raising his eyebrows. He peeks around MacCready’s arm at Deacon, who ripples his fingers in a wave. “I can come back.” 

“We wouldn’t dare turn away the General,” Deacon says. MacCready drops his arm, and Anthony laughs quietly as he pulls him into a quick hug. Then it’s Deacon’s turn, a brief squeeze around the ribs as MacCready shuts the door. 

“Dez misses you,” Deacon says as Anthony pulls back. Anthony’s smile falters, and Deacon almost regrets it.

“Yeah, I can imagine.” 

They corral themselves around the counter, MacCready and Deacon on one side, Anthony on the other. Anthony’s eyes flick back and forth between them for a moment, and then he just smiles. Deacon smothers the urge to flip him off. 

“How was the run?” Anthony asks, fingers tapping on the countertop.

“Another day, another dead Gunner,” Deacon says, and MacCready chuckles. After a moment, Deacon adds, “How are things on your end? You were in awhile, this time.” 

“Ah, yeah. That’s actually why I’m here. I wasn’t in the Institute. Well, not after the first day.” Anthony reaches up and adjusts his eyeglasses. “I, uh… stumbled into something else. Preston and I. Something I wanted to ask you to check out, both of you. I know you just got back—”

“I’m on the edge of my seat here, Bullseye,” Deacon says, raising his eyebrow a little. 

Anthony’s eyes glint. He looks almost excited, if Deacon had to guess. Huh. 

“So,” he says, tapping the counter again, like a drumroll, “I… may have found a Vault. An empty Vault. And I think we can use it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited for this, I'm getting to put in some ideas and headcanons I've been holding onto for awhile. 
> 
> Chapter 2 gave me a lot of trouble, and is part of the reason is took awhile for this to go live, but it's finally finished. It'll go up some time in the new year, once Chapter 3 is ready. I hope you all are enjoying the holidays as much as you can, and staying safe out there. Here's hoping the new year brings much better things. 
> 
> If you want to say hi while you wait for the next chapter, I'm @electricshoebox on tumblr and @galaxiesgone on twitter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon contemplates his present and his future, and Glory tags along with Anthony and the boys to see this apparently abandoned Vault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! I hope you all had a restful and peaceful holiday season. Sorry it took me awhile to get this posted, I've been wrestling a lot with this story and with the next chapter, so it took me a bit to find my footing with it. Thanks for being patient with me. 
> 
> **serenityfails** is once again my beta extraordinaire, and deserves all the thanks for helping me get the first and last scenes in particular to sound right and do what they needed to do. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: None!

Deacon opens his eyes as the sky is just beginning to lighten outside MacCready’s bedroom window. If he turns his head, he can see it through the trees on the edge of the river, peeking over the wall. It’s quiet. A few birds chatter somewhere in those trees, but he hears little else, just the roof creaking a little and MacCready snoring softly against his chest. 

Deacon glances down. MacCready’s hair fans over Deacon’s shoulder, and in the dim light, he can just make out the tip of MacCready’s nose where it brushes the skin above Deacon’s heart. Oh. God, that’s an image. Deacon follows the line of MacCready’s arm, bent as it is around Deacon’s stomach, down to the hand resting against his ribs. He can feel the soft puffs of MacCready’s breath tickling his skin. He’s pretty sure he can feel a little drool, too, which sort of makes him smile. MacCready will deny it up and down when he wakes up. Deacon doesn’t want him to wake up yet. 

He turns his head a little, careful not to move his body, and tries to memorize it. The angle of MacCready’s arm, the way his lips part, the curve of his shoulder. The rhythm of his breathing. The warmth of his knee where it’s stretched up over Deacon’s thigh under the blanket. 

Deacon does this, sometimes. A lot of times. Okay, every time he wakes up like this. 

He didn’t do it with Barbara. Most of the time she was up before him anyway, out in the fields at first light, while Deacon groaned into his pillow and tried to catch five more minutes. But even in the lazy mornings he coaxed her into staying under the sheets with him, he didn’t really hold on to it. Didn’t savor it. Didn’t… memorize it. Didn’t know he’d lose the chance.

Yeah, there it is, the same old fear as always, creeping up on him in the shadows of a sleepless morning. Typical. It’s the same fear that kept him away so long, the same fear that nearly robbed him of this. It's just evolved, the way everything in this godforsaken wasteland evolves: into some snarling, snapping thing. With teeth. And claws. And he feels the hot breath of it on his neck, like he always does when he wakes up this way. Feels it growling in his ear, _Enjoy it while it lasts_. 

So maybe he clings a little. A _little_. It’s not like they can travel together all the time. It’s not like they can share rooms every time they do, if there are even rooms to share. Even when they can, they have to measure the risk, watch every place they touch, every look they share. But in here… in here, he can hold onto this, just a little longer. 

Deacon sighs, a rush of breath that ruffles MacCready’s hair. He runs a hand up the naked length of MacCready’s back. He feels MacCready’s head twitch, then his arm tighten, something it does a lot, if he’s holding onto Deacon when he wakes up. It makes Deacon’s stomach flip every time, that protective little twitch. 

The snoring stops. Deacon hears the click of MacCready’s throat as he swallows. He strokes his thumb across a dip in MacCready’s spine, once and then again. MacCready makes a groggy humming noise and turns his face into Deacon’s shoulder.

“Time’s it?” he mumbles.

Deacon turns his head, but he can't make out the clock in the dark, and MacCready's PipBoy is too far to reach. "Before dawn."

MacCready groans, and Deacon laughs.

"Why're you awake?" MacCready says, clearer now as he turns back to press his cheek against Deacon's chest. Then he goes still. He lifts his head. "Nightmare?"

Ah. Yeah, that’s… a thing. It wouldn’t be the first time. Wouldn’t even be the fifth. Sometimes Deacon gasps awake quietly enough not to wake him, but sometimes he’s tearing out of his dreams with a scream gurgling in his throat, and his face soaked in tears. MacCready thrashes out of nightmares of his own, too, and Deacon knows he gets it. But he still hates it, hates that MacCready has to see him shaking and crumpling in on himself, trying to remember how to breathe. What a door prize for this relationship.

He never complains, though. Just opens his arms, when Deacon can stand to be touched. And reaches for the book on the nightstand, when he can’t. That’s become sort of a thing, too, since the night Deacon read to MacCready in the shed on the coast. A way to shake the dreams.

MacCready’s eyeing the nightstand now, or seems like he is, in the dim light. Deacon can make out the frown. But it isn’t nightmares gnawing at Deacon this time.

“No, I’m good,” Deacon says, and when MacCready turns the frown on him, Deacon holds up his free hand. “Swear. Think it was the damn birds. They’re so much louder on your — on this side of the house.”

MacCready shifts up, draping his arm over Deacon's shoulder and propping his head up with it. Deacon lets his hand fall to the middle of MacCready's back. It's getting a little easier to see him, now. Quietly, MacCready says, "You get used to it."

Deacon looks at him for a moment. Then he runs his fingers up the length of MacCready's spine, tracing along his shoulder blade. "Yeah. I will."

He wants to. He really wants to. 

MacCready smiles. Deacon can just make out the stretch of his cheeks. Then he leans down and presses that smile to Deacon's lips, soft and slow. When he pulls away, he nuzzles across Deacon's cheek, whiskers scraping gently at Deacon's skin. 

"Go back to sleep," he whispers in Deacon's ear. 

Then he shifts back down, resting his head on Deacon's chest again. Deacon runs a hand through MacCready’s hair, down and back, down and back, while MacCready holds onto him. MacCready drifts off again, but Deacon lays awake, watching the sky grow brighter outside, his head too loud. 

\----

He gives up when the sun climbs high enough that he can see the mismatched wood panels of the guard wall outside, and the tops of the dead hedge row in front of it. MacCready’s weight is heavy on his chest. Deacon’s skin feels tacky wherever they touch, and prickles if he thinks about it too long. Something feels too tight around his lungs. 

There’s no way to slide himself free without waking MacCready, he knows that. They both sleep the way all survivors sleep, no matter how much the cigarettes make them snore: light, and shallow, waking at any change in the room, waking ready to run. So Deacon’s not really surprised when the snoring chokes off next to him as he shifts his legs toward the edge of the bed. 

“Wha—wussrong?”

Deacon looks back over his shoulder, reaching to brush the hair back across MacCready’s temple. “Nothing. I’m gonna make breakfast. Sleep.”

“Should geddup.” MacCready yawns as he says it, and winds his arms around Deacon’s abandoned pillow, tugging it close. 

They should both get up. They should be dressing, eating quick, checking their packs, waiting for Anthony to knock. Deacon should be thinking through the sales pitch he’s got to give Desdemona once Anthony and MacCready drop him off at HQ and wait for him in Goodneighbor. _You, too, could be the proud owner of your very own Vault! Located next to a picturesque lake of dangerously irradiated rainwater in a complete mess of a quarry that just screams death trap, you and your family will be the envy of the neighborhood!_

So shoot him if he wants to put that conversation off a little longer. He looks down, and watches MacCready wrestle the pillow under his head until he can bury his nose in the folds of it. Deacon smiles to himself. He runs his fingers through MacCready’s hair one more time, and shifts to lean down and leave a kiss there, too. Maybe there’s more than one thing he wants to put off a little longer.

“You’ve got time,” he says softly. 

“Mmhmm.” 

Deacon keeps smiling to himself as he stands. He thought it would be weird, this whole domesticity thing. It’s one thing to share a house when you’ve still got one foot out the door, and you’re still holding your cards close to your chest, and you’re still thinking of yourself like a tumbleweed. It’s another thing entirely to put down roots, and to share not just a house but, increasingly, a bedroom, and, little by little, a dresser, and hell, to have a designated side of the bed (closest to the door). If he’s going to get corny about it, it’s about the one thing that still keeps tripping him up: not just sharing a house, but making it a home. 

So yeah, he expected it to be weird. He expected it to be terrifying, honestly, and in some ways, it is. It’s the kind of “something to lose” he feared ever having again, the kind that wakes him up before dawn to memorize what it feels like to have. But what’s weirder is how easy it was to build a routine, one he falls right into now as he pulls on a thick wool sweater over his t-shirt and zips up his jeans. He slots logs into the wood stove from the dwindling pile next to the cabinets. He pulls a can of water from the hollow fridge they use for a pantry, and a tin of instant coffee from the shelves next to it. He checks the fridge-pantry for what’s left in it that hasn’t gone off while they travelled: a mutfruit with one soft spot he can cut off the bottom, and half a bag of ground razorgrain. They’ll need milk. He grabs his coat where it waits by the door next to MacCready’s duster. 

What’s really weird is how much he likes this routine. And how much he thinks he could get used to it. This could be his future. He could _have_ a future. And maybe that’s the weirdest thing of all, having hope that a future is possible. 

All right, “hope” is a strong word. He’s still Railroad, after all. He knows the price of optimism.

As he steps out onto the sidewalk, pulling the last button through his coat collar, someone calls to him from across the street. “Morning, Will!” 

Deacon looks up quickly. It’s Torres, waving the hand that isn’t holding a pipe pistol. On his rounds, then. He crosses the pavement as Deacon waves back. 

“Cold one, eh?” he says. His breath fogs in the air. 

“You ain’t lying,” Deacon says. He blows into the cup of his palms and rubs them together. 

“Only gonna get worse,” Torres says. “Remember that Nor’easter last year?” 

“Remember? I’m just thanking my lucky stars I’ve got someone’s wood stove to mooch off of this year,” Deacon says. 

“MacCready hasn’t kicked you out yet, huh?” Torres laughs, slapping Deacon on the back. “Well, better get back to it. We on for poker Thursday?” 

“If we get back in time,” Deacon says as Torres starts up the sidewalk. 

“General’s got you guys going all over the place, huh? Well, good luck. Stay warm!”

Deacon waves again, then sighs, a sharp puff of white frosting the air in front of him. He buries his hands in his pockets, shrugging his shoulders in tighter, and starts to walk. 

Will. Yeah, there’s still that. Will, or Chris, or Sam, or Jack. Or Deacon. It was easy to keep those plates all spinning when spinning them was all that mattered. But now… 

Now, he has someone he wants to be. He had a whole big, life-changing revelation in a church steeple about it. It was raining and everything. And being that guy comes with some damn good perks. Like the one waiting back in bed, stealing his pillow. He’s got a lot of roles to play, but that one… well, he doesn’t want that one to be a role to play at all. 

He frowns to himself as he finally reaches the market, the last Pre-War house before Sanctuary’s front gate. The crates and buckets set out in the old car port that had made the card tables beneath them sag in the summer no longer hold melons and tatos. Instead, stacks of frostbitten firewood fill them to the brim, and line the space underneath, and in front. Little bundles of kindling tied with string sit among the stacks, too. The whole stall smells of maple wood and pine, something earthy that settles in his chest, instead of the cloying smell of melon that settled too heavy in his head. And nearest the door he finds a crate of milk bottles with the Abernathy name scratched into the wood. A fresh enough delivery that the glass hasn’t even gone cold yet. 

“Got any cinnamon left?” he asks Elena, the shopkeep, as he sets a bottle on her counter.

“Ooh, big spender,” she says with a smirk as she kneels to find the lockbox she keeps the rarer spices in. 

“What can I say, I like the finer things,” he says with a wink.

What he actually likes is introducing them to MacCready, who’d never had warm, spiced mutfruit in his porridge before Deacon and who’d just about dragged Deacon back to bed the first time Deacon made it. Yeah, that’s definitely a life Deacon could get used to.

The heat of the wood stove curls around him when he trudges back in the door. He hears water splashing somewhere down the hall. He sheds the coat, his shoulders easing a little as the door closes behind him. He kneels next to the stove and rummages through the cabinet for the pans. 

He’s in the middle of frying the fruit when he hears the bathroom door open and shut, and then the soft sound of bare feet wandering up the hallway. He starts turning the fruit slices over, keeping the browning even, when he feels two warm arms slide around his stomach. The smell of cigarette smoke and soap cuts through the coffee and cinnamon from the stove a moment before he feels lips pressed to the back of his neck. MacCready rests his cheek against the spot a moment later, skin cool and smooth against Deacon’s. Awake long enough to shave, then. 

“That smells so good,” MacCready says, nose brushing right above the collar of Deacon’s sweater. 

“Thought you might like it,” Deacon says. He turns the last slice of fruit over in the pan. 

“Beats Sugar Bombs,” MacCready says, and Deacon hears the smile in it. 

“All I could ask for.” Deacon chuckles and pats the hands clasped across his middle. “Not that I’m complaining, but to what do I owe the barnacle act this morning?” 

He feels MacCready shrug against his back. “Gotta get it in while I can, right? Enjoy it while it lasts.” 

Deacon stiffens before he thinks to stop himself. MacCready feels it, he has to, because he shifts until Deacon can see his head out of the corner of his eye. 

“Something wrong?” MacCready says. 

“Just the oil,” Deacon says, jerking his nose toward the pan. “Almost burned myself.”

MacCready snorts and shifts back out of sight, and Deacon closes his eyes under his sunglasses and takes a breath. MacCready’s arms slide back until it’s just his hands on Deacon’s waist. “Easy there, Chef Deacon.” 

“The ways I suffer for my craft,” Deacon says with an exaggerated sigh. 

A knock sounds at the door as MacCready laughs. They both turn to look, and MacCready gives one last pat to his side and then goes to open the door. Anthony stands on the threshold, zipped tight into the bulky leather coat he’d been favoring lately, his pack hanging off one shoulder. MacCready swings the door wide to let him in. But as he steps inside, he doesn’t say anything, and Deacon looks over to find him staring at the stove. His gaze jumps up to Deacon’s shades. 

“You can cook?” he says, eyes slowly widening. 

Deacon winces. “Ah, ha. So. Uh. Funny story.” 

“You should try these taco things he makes,” MacCready says, and Deacon barely fights down the scowl in time. So there went that secret. Great. 

Anthony gapes at him. “You can make tacos?” 

“Right, so, that funny story I was—”

“You can make _tacos_?” Anthony’s pack hits the floor. “Wait, they’re not made out of, like, bloatfly, are they?” 

Deacon raises an eyebrow. “I usually use brahmin.” 

“You’ve been holding out on me, you asshole,” Anthony says. “This better be a good funny story because I haven’t had a taco in two centuries and you don’t want to know what I would do to eat something in this wasteland that doesn’t taste like bloatfly.” 

“Right, so, funny story: you didn’t ask?” 

Anthony glares at him. “Oh, you _bastard._ ”

\----

“He found a… what now?” 

“A Vault,” Deacon says, watching Desdemona stub out her cigarette into a full ashtray. Not a good sign. “Vault 88. Totally empty. Well, I guess it wasn’t totally empty when he found it, there were some ferals, or something, but — Dez, think about it. A safehouse that’s an entire Vault.” 

Desdemona tugs the coat she’s wearing up higher around her neck. It’s colder than before down here. Not quite enough to see their breath, but enough that Drummer Boy’s graduated to wearing a blanket around his shoulders and Tinker Tom’s added a scarf. Carrington keeps stopping every other minute to rub his knuckles. Deacon thinks of the wood stove back at the house, a sour little spike of guilt hitting his stomach. 

Desdemona presses her lips into a line as she lifts the crudely-drawn map Anthony had given Deacon to show her. “And where did you say this was?”

“Outside Quincy, in an old quarry. It would take the pressure off Randolph, but the real prize? We wouldn’t have to scramble when Patriot and Bullseye do that jailbreak they’re planning. It’ll easily fit thirteen synths, plus the means to feed them and—”

“And thirteen synths in one place is a huge risk, wherever it is. What are we looking at for defenses?” Desdemona looks up at him. The shadows bank deep under her eyes. She’s pulled her hair into a low ponytail; the strands falling around her face hang limp, and look a little greasy. 

“Dez,” Deacon says quietly, “when’s the last time you ate?” 

Her eyes narrow. “When’s the last time you cared?”

Deacon shrinks back, the words hitting like a fist. Desdemona bites her lip and looks away as he stares. Her shoulders drop under the bulk of the coat, her fingers bunching restlessly at the collar. “That—was out of line. I apologize.” 

Deacon watches her for a moment. She keeps her eyes on the table. When he doesn’t speak, she frowns tightly and waves a hand, saying, “I’m fine. Continue. Defenses.” 

Deacon weighs the risk of pushing it, but her knuckles go tight enough to whiten around the coat collar, and her eyes keep dodging his. He clears his throat. 

“Right. Well, that’s… part of what we’re going to look into.” 

“We?” Her eyes finally flit back up. 

Deacon fights down the urge to flinch. “Yeah. Bullseye’s taking me, and, uh—”

“And me.” 

An arm snakes under Deacon’s, shoving under his elbow to grip tight. Glory presses in against his side and adds, loudly, “Because Deacon knows there’s no way he’s checking out a new safehouse without me. He wouldn’t dare do that without inviting his favorite heavy.” 

“I already said Bullseye’s coming,” Deacon says, grunting when that earns him an elbow to the ribs.

Desdemona’s gaze moves back and forth between them. “And how do you know this is a suggestion we can trust?” 

“Well, we’re going to look into—” 

Desdemona talks over him. “How do I know I’m not sending two of my best agents into an ambush?” 

Glory lets go of Deacon’s arm. “Dez, come on, you really think Bullseye’s going to do something like that?” 

“I think he’s spending a great deal of time on the inside, and I think finding a space like this all of a sudden is convenient. And I think we could do with far more care where he is concerned.” She snatches up the pack of cigarettes still lying on the table and plucks out another. 

Deacon clears his throat again. “But that’s — I mean, that was the mission, right? We wanted a man on the inside.” 

“Don’t patronize me, Deacon,” she snaps. She places the cigarette between her lips and thumbs at her lighter. 

“Hey, don’t you think—” Glory starts as Desdemona takes a drag.

“We need to be incredibly cautious, now more than ever. We need to watch Bullseye and how close he is to this, and what kind of judgment calls he’s making, very closely. And we need to be very careful who we trust,” Desdemona says. She frowns at Deacon. “I would think you, of all people, would appreciate that.” 

It’s a low blow. She has to know that. Deacon lifts his chin, trying to keep his face completely blank, to mask how hard he’s biting down on his words. The room around them has gone quiet. Even Drummer Boy’s typing has stopped. Deacon can feel eyes on his back. 

He keeps his voice carefully even, his words clipped, as he says, “Would you like me to tell him ‘thanks but no thanks’?” 

Desdemona takes another drag. “Check it out, both of you. But I want you out at the first sign of trouble. And we approach this carefully. Assume the Institute is involved, and vet the place thoroughly before we risk putting any more lives in danger.” 

Deacon gives her a stiff nod. Like that hadn’t always been the plan. She knows better than that. 

Glory nudges his arm. “Just tell me where to meet you before you head out.” 

Deacon nods again. Glory steps away, wandering toward the back hallway. Quiet chatter starts up again around them, curious eyes sliding away. Deacon swallows and plants his feet. “There’s one more thing.” 

“Don’t ask again,” she says, smoke twisting up from her lips. She doesn’t look up. 

“No, I—” He purses his lips, fighting down the scowl tugging at the corners. “Jesus, Dez, message received, all right? You’re mad at me, you don’t want to talk about it, fine. This isn’t about that.”

“That’s not—” She lifts her head, then seems to hesitate. She motions with the cigarette, smoke circling in the air. “Fine. What is it?” 

Deacon slides his hands off the table and into his pockets. “It’s Stockton. He’s got three synths in Bunker Hill.” 

“I know. We got the dead drop.” 

“My point is, they called a stop to sending synths out. Patriot and Bullseye. Until they can do their big break. Stockton said he found these three along his route, but not heading for Diamond City.” 

Desdemona furrows her brow. “Go on.” 

Deacon fights to keep his voice steady. “Come on, that doesn’t red flag to you? Even if it is some escaped work crew or something, the fact that they just happened to stop on Stockton’s route? No courser in pursuit?” 

Desdemona takes a drag, watching him for a moment. “You think it’s a trap.”

“I think it’s a damn good setup for one,” Deacon says. “Am I wrong?” 

Desdemona looks down at the ashtray, and taps her cigarette against the rim. When she speaks, for the first time since he got here, the edge in her voice is gone. “No. I’ll put some agents on patrol, get eyes on the ground.” 

Deacon breathes out, a little of the tension in his shoulder loosening. “Thank you. You know if it’s legit, we need to—”

“Move them. Yes,” she says with a sigh. “I’ll take care of it.” 

Deacon nods. He steps back from the table. She looks at him, something in the tense lines of her face starting to soften. She opens her mouth. He turns away before she can speak.

\----

“Well, isn’t this… cozy.”

Glory wrinkles her nose, rolling a pebble under the toe of her boot as she looks down into the glowing water filling the quarry below them. Deacon steps up next to her. 

“All right, so it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.” 

Glory kicks the pebble over the edge. It hits the water with a hiss, and Deacon winces. He tips his head toward her and says, “Still probably warmer down there than HQ.” 

Glory snorts. She elbows him back from the edge. 

“I actually thought the green goo lake was kind of a selling point,” Anthony says. He pulls a Rad-X bottle out of the pocket of his coat and shakes a pill out into his hand. He swallows it dry, then holds the bottle out toward MacCready. He looks up when MacCready doesn’t take it, and only then realizes all three of them are gaping at him. 

“What? It is!” he says. He nudges the bottle toward MacCready again, who takes it this time. Then Anthony points across the quarry. “The entrance to the Vault is down there, buried behind the rock face and a whole long tunnel of dirt besides. You’d never know it was there unless you went looking, and who’s going to want to go looking _here_?”

MacCready palms a pill and passes the bottle to Glory. “Uh, boss, we can kinda see the raider shacks all over the quarry, so…”

It’d been quite the settlement, actually. A whole elaborate network of shacks weaving in and out of the granite blocks, along with a few trailers left over from the Pre-War at the top. Deacon can see shelves set up with drying meat, and a doused campfire on one ledge. The shacks even spread down to the water, though why any of them would want to bunk that close to it is beyond Deacon.

“And yet they never managed to crack the door,” Anthony says, undeterred. “If Tom put together that door in the Church, we can figure something out here. And anyway, the catacombs were full of ferals when I found them.” 

“Yeah, thanks for nothing, by the way. You know how long it took me to get them down there?” Glory says, tossing the Rad-X bottle to Deacon, who nearly fumbles it. She glances back at him, raising an eyebrow, and he glares back.

“You packed the Church full of ferals?” MacCready says, looking a little impressed.

“Some of them were already there,” she says with a shrug as she turns back around. “Corralled the rest from a gym across the street. We needed the insurance, in case the wrong kind of people followed the trail.” 

“Exactly my point,” Anthony says, sweeping a hand toward the quarry again. 

“You realize _we_ have to be able to get in there too, right?” Glory says. 

Anthony rolls his eyes. “Do you think Deacon’s taught me nothing?”

Deacon lifts his eyebrows as Glory glances back at him. She looks him up and down, and then looks back at Anthony. “Yes.” 

“Har-dee-fuckin-har,” Deacon says, as she smirks. 

“Come on, you guys are gonna like this. Trust me,” Anthony says. He nods toward the path that will lead them down along the granite blocks. 

Glory takes one more dubious look over the side at the water, flicks her eyebrows at Deacon, and then turns to follow Anthony and MacCready down the hill. Deacon glances around them with a frown of his own, and follows.

\----

The entry hall looks about the same as the other Vaults Deacon’s found his way inside of. Cleaner than most, maybe. A lot of panels and buttons and bits and bobs that Tinker Tom would probably have a field day with, if they set him loose on it. Deacon peeks in a barred window off to the right. It opens into a room lit only by a dim light on the ceiling and cluttered with desks and more panels with buttons. He fits his hand between the bars and knocks his knuckle against the glass. It sounds thick. 

“Well, good thing it comes with decon arches,” Glory says, patting one of the fixtures next to the window. “We’re gonna need ‘em.” 

A loud alarm suddenly blares, and they both snap around to find the warning lights around the Vault door flashing. The gears around the door crunch and creak to life, starting to turn. Then, before either of them can move, the sound cuts off. The gears still, and the lights go dormant again. The door settles back the bare inch it had moved. Deacon hears a clatter near the control panel, and looks over to see MacCready standing in front of it, wrenching his PipBoy back. His eyes dart up, and he winces. 

“Sorry,” he says, dropping his hand to his side. He flips a plastic cover closed quickly and clears his throat. “Just wanted to see if it worked.” 

Deacon slowly smirks as MacCready steps back, and he hears Glory snort next to him. MacCready tugs his hat lower. 

At that moment, the lights flicker on overhead with a quiet hum, bright enough that Deacon’s grateful for his sunglasses. One of the decon arches clicks on with a hiss, and Glory flinches back in surprise. Deacon looks over the room again in the light. “Damn. I mean, it could use the Mr. Handy once-over but otherwise…”

“Like it was built yesterday, right?” Anthony reappears on the other side of the room, smiling. He swings his arm in invitation, and Deacon and Glory look at each other before following him down a short hallway and into the Vault proper. 

The hallway opens into a wide room with towering ceilings that arch nearly two stories above them. Their footsteps echo as they spread out across the floor. A staircase opens straight ahead of them, leading to a mezzanine floor that branches off in either direction. Beneath the stairs, there’s a sprawling cafeteria with aggressively cheerful pink wallpaper. It comes equipped with a long lunch counter and several unmarred picnic tables. The pink wallpaper stops abruptly against a maintenance door helpfully labeled “Maintenance Door,” and next to that the wall turns a soothingly pale green. The label declares that section the clinic. Across the room, on Deacon’s right, sits another sectioned-off room labeled “General Store.” Deacon can see empty shelves against the wall through a shop window, along with scattered stacks of crates. A hallway snakes off to the side between the store and the cafeteria. And from where he’s standing, it looks like plenty of other designated shops or rooms line the upper floor, too. Deacon lets out a low whistle. Anthony smiles.

“Was I right, or was I right?” he says, spreading his arms again.

“Dang, Anthony,” MacCready says. Deacon looks over to see his head swiveling, taking in what they can see of the second floor. He cuts a look toward Deacon, then away. “Don’t, uh, take this the wrong way, but this would make a hell of a settlement.” 

Glory, who’d been peering in the windows of the clinic, looks back over her shoulder. She glances at Deacon, too, then back at Anthony. “He’s not wrong. What made you think of us instead?” 

Anthony’s smile slowly settles into a line. He looks down at his feet a moment. “I’m surprised it took you this long to ask.” 

Glory turns toward him. She’s quiet a moment, then sighs. “Look, Bullseye, I leave the cloak and dagger department to Deacon. It’s not that we’re not grateful. But I just want it straight. This is an awfully lucky thing to just find empty.” 

MacCready’s gaze darts back and forth between them, and then his brow bends in. He goes tense. “Wait, are you saying you don’t trust him?” 

“I’d be more concerned if I wasn’t being questioned, RJ,” Anthony says, lifting a hand a little from his side and patting the air. MacCready turns back around to look at Deacon, who tries to keep his face blank. 

Anthony sighs. “I don’t really know how to prove I’m on the level other than what I’ve already done. I will take this to the Minutemen, if you can’t trust it. However you need to test me, whatever you need to do, do it. This just seemed like a good solution for the Patriot plan, and — whatever comes after.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I know this seems too good to be true. You don’t even know the half of it, yet. I wouldn’t trust it either, if I were you. _I_ still can’t believe we just stumbled on it.”

A moment of silence passes, cut only by the hum of the lights overhead. Glory and Deacon share a look across the room again, but it’s MacCready that keeps drawing Deacon’s eyes back. He looks… almost hurt. 

Maybe that’s why Deacon’s the first to cave. “Bullseye… shit. You know I’ve got your back. The Railroad just—”

“Deacon, I told you, I get it. You need to be sure. I want you to be sure.” 

Deacon presses his lips together to keep from biting them. “It’s—not really that _we’re_ unsure—”

Anthony bows his head. “I know.” He huffs out something too weak to be a laugh. “She’s just doing her job. And making you do yours.” 

MacCready’s shoulders slowly relax. His eyes slide away from Deacon, and Deacon thinks maybe he gets it. He hopes he gets it. 

“I’m going to start sounding like a politician,” Anthony says, shaking his head, “but let me state for the record: the last thing I want is the Institute sniffing around this place. But I still don’t know if they have a way to track me, so… do what you have to do before you use it. I’d have just sent you the coordinates and left you to it, but—” He chuckles, and shakes his head again. “Sue me, I really wanted to see the looks on your faces when you see the living quarters.” 

The tension in the air eases. Deacon pushes his sunglasses up higher and says, “Well, can’t say no to that.”

Anthony looks a little relieved. He leads them toward the hallway on the right, and Deacon falls into step beside MacCready. He lets his fingers brush the back of MacCready’s hand. MacCready looks over at him. He gives him an uneasy line of a smile, then looks away again. It does nothing to settle the tight feeling in Deacon’s stomach. 

\----

And Deacon thought the main entrance was impressive. 

The living quarters spread over two floors, with another staircase to connect all the rooms. And there are a lot of them. A whole lot of them. More than Vault 81, easily, which had been Deacon’s favorite Vault up to today. Not that there was a whole lot of competition: Vault 111 was basically a graveyard, and Vault 95 still smelled like Gunners and was beachfront on the Glowing Sea. Not exactly a selling point. He hadn’t been to the one they tried keeping Nick prisoner in, but, y’know, also not a selling point. So really, it was kind of a low bar. 

But it’s going to be tough to beat _working refrigerators_ from here on out. 

“Holy shit,” he says as he pulls the refrigerator door open in the first room they’d all piled into. “Come here, it’s actually cold.” 

MacCready and Glory look up from the bookshelves across the room. The kitchen itself is small, more of a wet bar built into the wall with a tiny stove on the counter, but who the hell cares about the size when it has an actual, honest-to-god working refrigerator? 

MacCready leans around him and waves a hand inside. He snatches it back in surprise. “Seriously?!” 

“Damn, D-Man, you think you could talk Dez into moving HQs instead?” Glory says. She backs away from the fridge and heaves herself down on one of the beds in the corner. “I could get used to this.” 

“Why me?” Deacon shuts the fridge. 

Glory sits up and gives him a look. “Because you’re the only one who can talk her into anything?”

_Not lately_. Everyone’s polite enough not to say it out loud. That tight feeling in Deacon’s stomach squeezes anyway as he plasters on a smirk and tries to ignore it. “Just nice to hear you admit it.”

“Come on, we haven’t even gotten to the best part,” Anthony says from the doorway. 

“Oh, I think I found the best part,” Glory says, sinking back down against the pillows with a sigh. 

Anthony laughs. “What if I said it involves hot, running water?” 

“I’d say I saw the lake outside and I’m good,” Glory says.

“It’s an underground source. Massive purifier.” Anthony smirks. “No rads.” 

Glory sits up again. “Come again?” 

There are two sets of bathrooms, it turns out, on either side of the living quarters, separated by gender. Anthony leads them to the closest. Toilet stalls line the wall to the right, and shower stalls the left, with a bank of sinks separating them. Deacon pulls back the plastic curtain on one of the shower stalls to look in. “Shit, Bullseye. You’re sure it’s clean?” 

“Positive. I tried it myself,” he says. He shoulders around Deacon and pulls the tap forward. Water sprays down like a rain shower. Deacon’s seen these before, the few times he managed to talk his way into Vault 81. He’s dreamed of them ever since. He lifts a hand to catch the water and finds it cold. 

“Give it a second,” Anthony says, shaking his fingers under the spray. After a moment, he steps back. “There you go.” 

Deacon reaches out again. Warm water splashes down into his palm, growing warmer by the second. “Oh my god.” 

“What’s all the fuss?” MacCready says from behind them.

Deacon looks back. “Have you never seen one of these?” 

“Yeah, I’ve seen them. We have one in our house,” MacCready says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Not one we can _use_ ,” Deacon says, swallowing back against the little flip his stomach does at _our house_. “Bobby, come on. Think about not having to lug in buckets of water for a bath. No cold rags to scrub down with.” 

MacCready tilts his head, considering. Deacon straightens and holds out his dry hand. “Come on, feel this.” 

Anthony steps out of the stall and lets MacCready slide in as he takes Deacon’s hand. He dips his fingers into the spray, then flinches back in surprise. The water’s hot enough to steam, now. 

“Just imagine that on your shoulders after a long day,” Deacon says. He leans in closer, his chest pressing into MacCready’s shoulder as he murmurs, “Plenty of room for two in here, too.” 

He’s close enough that he can hear MacCready’s breath hitch under the noise of the water. He laughs and backs away. MacCready glares at him and hisses, “You assh—argh, you jerk! You can’t just say that!”

Deacon just keeps laughing. He reaches back in and pushes the knob back to shut it off. MacCready glances back over his shoulder. Deacon can see a flush creeping up his neck from under his scarf. Deacon smirks and calls, “Hey, boss, I think MacCready’s about ready to buy this place off you.” 

But it’s Glory’s head that peeks around the corner. “You two done flirting in there?”

“Yes, Mom,” Deacon says, laughing when MacCready elbows his arm.

“Ew, no thank you.” Glory scrunches her nose up again and slides back out of sight. Deacon just laughs again. 

\----

“So the other best part,” Anthony says as they emerge out into the main hall again, “is that this place has two other entrances.” 

“Two?” Deacon repeats, eyebrows rising.

Anthony smirks and winks, nodding to one of the picnic tables and taking a seat. “Told you I was paying attention. The downside is they’re… sort of a hike, from here.” He looks up at the ceiling, and gestures toward it. “We’re inside a massive underground system. Part of it’s subway, part of it’s… I don’t even know. It connects into a few different places. The first is West Roxbury station.” 

“West… _Roxbury_?” Glory’s mouth drops open as she slides into the seat across from him. “Shit, you weren’t kidding about that being a hike. That’s like an hour walk from here, isn’t it?” 

“And it’s super mutant territory,” Deacon says. He threads his legs through to take the spot on the bench next to her. “Be a hell of a thing, to have a way around that. What’s the other entrance?” 

“It opens into the basement of a pharmacy across the street from University Point,” Anthony says, as MacCready just plants himself onto the edge of the table, in front of Deacon. 

“Holy shit. It spans _that_ far?” Glory looks at Deacon, wide-eyed. Deacon knows the feeling. “You’re sure this is a clear route?” 

Anthony looks back over his shoulder at the maintenance door. “That’s what took so long. Preston and I cleared out every tunnel. Not gonna say you won’t run into a few molerats or something, but we cleared all the ferals. Triple checked. And, uh, the… the deathclaw nest.”

“The what?!” MacCready’s head snaps around. “You took on a deathclaw? Just the two of you? Crap, Anthony, you’re lucky it didn’t tear you to ribbons.” 

“Yeah, believe me, I know.” Anthony wrinkles his nose. 

“You’re one crazy son of a bitch, you know that?” Glory says, shaking her head. “I knew this was too good to be true.” 

“Listen, we checked that section top to bottom, and put in some traps. Shot all the eggs to pieces, I swear,” Anthony says, raising his hand. “I’ll show you. We can take that way out tomorrow. I’ve gotta head that way anyway.” 

“Heading back in?” Deacon says, folding his elbows up on the table. 

Anthony shakes his head. “No. Well, not yet. I’ve got to track down something for Patriot at an old lab in Cambridge, and then I’ve got to go make nice with the Brotherhood, probably run some of their damn errands, and by then I should probably put in an appearance in the Institute, though I really should check on the Castle—”

“Whoa, boss,” MacCready interrupts. “You really are allergic to delegating, aren’t you?” 

Anthony blinks up at him in surprise. “I mean, no? I have an army under me doing a hell of a lot—”

“Look, I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been in charge of anyone, but I’m telling you, you’re gonna burn out like this. You can’t be in eight places at once, come on.” MacCready frowns at him. “Preston’s got the Castle. And we can’t really do anything about the Brotherhood or the Institute, but… what’s the lab thing? Deacon and I can head home through Cambridge.” He glances at Deacon. “Unless, uh, you had other places to be.” 

“No, I’m game,” Deacon says. 

Anthony opens his mouth, and then closes it. He gives a soft laugh, bowing his head. “You guys don’t have to do that, really, I can take care of it. You’ll have to tell Dez the details about this place anyway, and—”

“Oh, rude,” Glory says, leaning back. “What am I, invisible? I can handle that.” 

“I—” Anthony glances between all of them, and then smiles a little. “I’m not going to win this argument, am I?” 

MacCready reaches over and clasps his shoulder. Anthony looks up at him, his smile widening a little. He nods, and MacCready lets go. 

“Just point us in the right direction and tell us what we’re looking for on the way out,” Deacon says. “We’ll meet up with you when you’re done with the Brotherhood.” 

“Speaking of,” Glory says, “any chance you know why those tinheads are nosing around so much lately?” 

Anthony furrows his brow. “What do you mean?” 

Glory shrugs. “I mean, I see them around now and again on my rounds, usually poking some mutie nest or something. But last couple weeks? I swear, it’s like… every time I go out, there’s another group of them. They wouldn’t know ‘subtle’ if it kicked them in the power core, but I think _they_ think they’re being sneaky. Side streets, back alleys, all that. Always in close to the city. It’s enough to give a girl ideas.” 

“Thought you said things had been quiet,” Deacon says, frowning.

“I mean, they’re not doing anything,” Glory says. “Which, actually… never mind, that’s weird. That’s weird, right? Usually they’re out there pissing _somebody_ off…”

“I don’t think it’s ever a good sign if the Brotherhood’s trying to be their idea of sneaky,” Deacon says. 

“I agree.” Anthony taps his fingers on the table. “I’ll see what I can sniff out.” He looks to Deacon. “I’ll radio if I find anything.” 

Deacon nods, patting his pack where the radio waits, switched off. MacCready shifts back onto his feet and says, “All right, enough business. I’m starving.” 

Anthony straightens, and then levels a look at Deacon. Oh, no. 

“Bullseye—”

“All in favor of making Deacon cook?” 

Anthony and MacCready raise their hands. Glory narrows her eyes at Deacon. “Wait a minute. Wait just one damn minute. You always said you didn’t know the first thing about cooking.” 

Shit. Deacon wets his lips and tips his head down so he can glower at MacCready over the rim of his sunglasses. MacCready frowns right back and points at Anthony. “The heck you looking at me for? It was his idea.” 

“You burned the ever-loving shit out of those brahmin steaks O’Dell got us at the Farm,” Glory says. “We had to eat canned beans for a week!” 

Deacon holds up a hand. “Okay, so, in my defense—”

“Are you telling me you burned those steaks on purpose?”

“ _I’m_ not telling you that, no—”

“Oh, you son of a bitch, you are on dinner duty forever when we get back.” 

Deacon shifts his legs over the bench. “Sorry, no longer in residence.”

“I will drag you back from Sanctuary by the ear, don’t fucking test me—”

Deacon scrambles back off the bench as she tries to snatch his coat sleeve. He dashes around the other picnic tables toward the kitchen, almost hip-checking the counter in his haste. Anthony’s laughter follows behind him.

“Yeah, you better start chopping!” Glory calls after him. “I expect to be impressed!”

Deacon ducks around the doorway, but pauses to look back at MacCready. He jabs his finger at him. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

MacCready tosses his hands. “I didn’t _do_ anything!”

\----

“Oh what the f—heck.” 

Deacon finishes pulling his sweater over his head and glances over. MacCready sprawls back on the bed, his head sinking into one of the plush pillows waiting against the headboard. Deacon smirks and tosses the sweater toward his pack on the floor, tugging the t-shirt he wore underneath until it covers his stomach again.

They’d taken the bedroom they’d been snooping around in earlier, full up on Salisbury Steak and Instamash. Not exactly the impressive feast Glory was demanding, but there wasn’t much else to choose from in the Vault’s food stores, and they hadn’t had any produce to cart along with them, this late in the year. So he’d gotten off with a promise to cook for her in Sanctuary. He hadn’t burned the damn meat, though, and surely that was penance enough. 

Glory’s camped back out on the mezzanine level now, taking first watch. Seemed like kind of a formality to Deacon, if the raiders couldn’t figure out the front door and never managed to stumble on the back ones. But he thinks that deathclaw story spooked her more than she wanted to say. Anthony offered to take the next shift, so Deacon and MacCready left them to it. 

“This leaves our bed in the dust,” MacCready says, patting the mattress. He lifts his head. “Think we could smuggle it out?” 

Deacon chuckles, pulling his sunglasses off. “Sure. You take one end, I’ll take the other, and as long as we don’t drop it in the swamp or get noticed by anything with a gun or a brain, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” 

“Killjoy,” MacCready says, without heat. He sits up as Deacon pads across the floor (shit, this carpet is plush) and sets his sunglasses on the nightstand. “Hey, I, uh — can I ask you something?”

Deacon straightens. There's something uneasy about the way MacCready asks. Something about him asking at all. “What’s up?”

MacCready looks away, toward the dresser he’d left his things strewn across. He’s wearing only his t-shirt and briefs, and it makes him look smaller, with all the usual padding gone and the t-shirt stretched loose from use.

“Earlier, when you guys were — when you were asking Anthony why he’s handing over this place.” He purses his lips, staring at the dresser like he might find the words he wants scrawled on the drawers. “You don’t… actually think he’s in league with the Institute, do you?”

Deacon sighs, and MacCready looks up at him again. Carefully, Deacon says, “Bobby, you have to understand, no one’s done anything like this before. It makes things more dangerous than they’ve ever been for the Railroad—”

“I’m not asking about the Railroad,” MacCready interrupts. “I’m asking you.”

MacCready’s gaze feels heavy, now that it’s fixed on him. Deacon fights the instinct to look away, or fidget his hands into his pockets. He swallows. “No, I don’t think he’s loyal to the Institute. I think… he’s doing what we asked him to go in there and do.”

MacCready lets out a breath. His shoulders loosen out of the rigid line he’d been holding them in. “Okay.”

Deacon’s shoulders pick up the tension where MacCready’s left off. “Bobby, you know I have to do my job, though. I have to ask—”

MacCready’s already nodding before Deacon can finish. “I know, I know. I get it. I just—needed to hear it.”

Deacon closes his mouth. He nods, once and then again. “The way he looked, the first time he came back? Maybe he could play the long con, spring a trap, but… that'd be the performance of a lifetime, getting that sick and frightened.” He shakes his head. “But Dez didn’t get to see that. So…”

“Yeah, okay. I didn’t think you’d, you know, but—” MacCready makes a vague gesture with his hand. He drops it. “Yeah.”

Deacon nods again. A moment passes, the silence a little awkward as Deacon shifts his weight from one foot to the other, unsure. 

Finally, MacCready clears his throat and pushes to his feet. “Hey, I forgot to tell you. Daisy had a letter for me. You wanna—?” He points toward his coat.

“Yeah,” Deacon says, smiling a little, his shoulders starting to relax. “Yeah, of course.”

He sits down in the spot MacCready abandons, shifting himself back against the pillows. “Oh god damn, this really is nice.”

“See?” MacCready grins, vindicated, glancing back as he fishes through his coat. He finally pulls something free and tosses the coat back over his pack and the rest of his clothes.

Deacon nods to the space next to him as he curls one leg up out of the way. The other dangles to the floor next to the nightstand. But instead of sitting on the edge of the bed like Deacon expects, MacCready slides down in front of him, pressing his back up against Deacon’s chest. Deacon inhales a little too sharply in surprise, and MacCready stills. 

He looks back over his shoulder. “This okay?” 

Deacon pulls himself together and snakes an arm around MacCready’s stomach, pulling him in tighter. Something about it, about holding him there, does ease the lingering tense feeling across Deacon’s body. Against the warm skin of MacCready’s neck, he murmurs, “Now it is.” 

He hears MacCready snort softly. “Smooth.” 

“Shut up.” 

MacCready chuckles. He relaxes his weight back against Deacon’s chest, and Deacon fits his chin where MacCready’s neck meets his shoulder. MacCready lifts the ripped envelope in his hand and tugs out a folded pair of papers. The first he pulls open to reveal another of Duncan’s drawings: what looks like a snowman bordered in blue crayon spreads black stick arms open in greeting, staring up at them with a toothy grin, a carrot nose, and a wide blue splash of a scarf.

“I see he’s entering his blue period,” Deacon says, reaching his free hand to trace the circle at the snowman’s base.

“What’s wrong with blue?” MacCready says, turning his head a little and frowning. “He likes blue.” 

“I like blue!” Deacon says. “Nothing wrong with it, it’s a good color on this guy.” 

He doesn’t need to see the smile to know it’s there. MacCready sets the drawing to the side, near Deacon’s foot, and Deacon’s hand falls back to rest on MacCready’s hip. 

“I can’t believe it snowed there before here,” MacCready says, unfolding the letter. “Felt like all it did last winter was snow here.” 

“Must have been a hell of a welcome to the Commonwealth,” Deacon says.

He feels more than hears MacCready sigh. “Yeah.” 

Deacon shifts his chin back, and brushes a kiss against the curve of MacCready’s neck. Then he puts on his Haughty British Mr. Handy accent and says, “Right then, what news of the south? Bestow it upon me, good sir.” 

MacCready snorts again, leaning his head back a little on Deacon’s shoulder. “What would you do if I busted out one of those accents when you least expected it?” 

“If it’s a good one? Realistically, probably pop a very compromising boner,” Deacon says, smiling when MacCready shakes with laughter against him. 

“Yeah?” MacCready says between snickering gasps, “That does it for you?”

“You being very good at things does it for me, yes,” Deacon says.

What Deacon can see of MacCready’s smile softens. He twists up until he can meet Deacon’s lips in a firm kiss. Then he settles back again. “Still, think I’ll leave the accents to you.” 

“Aw, come on,” Deacon says, nosing along the skin in front of MacCready’s ear. “I like the one that slips out when I really get you going.” 

“Shut up, that’s not a thing,” MacCready says.

“‘Dee, get the oil,’” Deacon says, cadence slipping into the soft southern drawl MacCready always denies he’s capable of. Deacon pronounces “oil” like the “i” isn’t there at all, and it gets him a swat to the shin. He keeps to himself how much that little nickname tripped him up, the first time it slid out. 

“I do not sound like that.” 

“Oh come on, it’s cute!”

“Yeah?” MacCready lifts his head. “We gonna talk about the way your accent slips when I get _you_ going?” 

Deacon falters. He hadn’t realized… had he really? That’s… he’s had very tight control over what he sounds like for a very long time. The accent was the first thing to go. He carefully smothered the Boston-tinged vowels of his childhood, made sure to hit his “r’s” just the right way. Had his grip on that really slipped so hard? 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” MacCready says, when Deacon doesn’t answer. “Now, are you gonna let me read this or not?” 

Deacon, feeling suddenly off center again, rests his chin back down and says, “I’m all ears.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) So, it wasn't until Anthony's playthrough that I really put any effort into the Vault 88 DLC, and as I was building I thought, _shit_ , this would make a damn good safehouse for the Railroad with three entrances and so many tunnels. And I have been on a quest to find a way to shunt in that headcanon ever since. I'm basically disregarding the plot of the DLC almost completely, we're going to pretend that Vault has always been sitting there completely built up. And obviously I'm taking some license with the amenities. Shhh. Anyway, the design is based on the Vault I built in my game. 
> 
> 2) Threw in another little headcanon about where Glory found the ferals. It had to be nearby, and I thought that might be a fun explanation as to why that gym is just totally empty of hostiles.
> 
> 3) If you follow me on tumblr, you've probably seen me ramble about my accent headcanons for these two before. I've lived both in the Boston suburbs and in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not far from where Little Lamplight is meant to be. So I have some feelings about what kind of accents the boys might have picked up or started out with, and I've been trying to find a way to squeeze that in, too. It was also a very gentle in-text tease of my beta, who flipped me off accordingly for it, hehehe. 
> 
> Chapter 3 is finished, and I ended up having to split what I planned over two chapters. So it'll go up once I finish Chapter 4. I'm also aiming to get something written for Valentine's Day, either a one shot or an update to the Mac POV ALITS scenes fic. So look out for that too. In the mean time, I'm @electricshoebox on tumblr and @galaxiesgone on twitter if you want to say hi.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and MacCready snatch a little alone time while they can. After parting ways with Glory, the boys stumble on a Brotherhood patrol. Then it's on to a pre-war laboratory a little close to the Institute for comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope the new year has been treating you all well. It's been kind of a wild ride over here. My roommate tested positive for COVID despite our super strict safety measures (we're essential workers in a healthcare-adjacent field, and had only been at work and at home), and we had to figure out a way to quarantine from each other in our little apartment. By some miracle I managed not to contract it, though I did start to have symptoms after our quarantine ended and had to go back into isolation for a few days until I was found negative again, and probably just had a sinus infection. So that was our January. Roomie is doing better but still pretty worn out. The one good thing about quarantining was that it gave me a ton of time to write, because it wasn't like there was a lot else to do! So I've got a lot to share this month. But this one is actually unexpected, I totally didn't plan to have Ch. 4 finished yet, but it came together much better than I hoped! So, update it is! 
> 
> Thanks as ever to **serenityfails** , still graciously reading and editing for me even after the month we had. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: just some explicit consensual sex in the first scene, which you can thank **serenityfails** for by the way, because I originally had a fade-to-black and their editing notes for this chapter were basically "Riss, write the smut." Oh also some very vague description of a dead deathclaw.

In the morning, MacCready tugs Deacon out of bed and over to the stack of towels neatly folded and untouched in the room’s tiny linen closet. He grabs them, looking up at Deacon with a smirk that simmers as he flicks his eyebrows up and then nods in the direction of the bathrooms. 

And really, how is Deacon supposed to resist that? 

“Might be our only chance,” MacCready says as Deacon trails behind him down the hallway in the jeans and t-shirt he’d haphazardly pulled on from the floor, in case they ran into Anthony or Glory on the way. 

“This place is ours now,” Deacon says. 

“Yeah, but you guys don’t hang out at the safehouses, right?” MacCready glances over his shoulder. His t-shirt yawns open at the collar, loose from wear and a night in a heap on the carpet. Deacon wants to fix his mouth to the arch of bone peeking out from the gap. “And anyway, there’s no way I’m getting you in there with me when your Railroad buddies are right outside, I know you.” 

That’s — well, fair. Deacon frowns a little. MacCready glances back at him again, and just nods when Deacon doesn’t respond. “Yeah. So. Come on.” He pushes the button for the bathroom door and it rises out of the way. 

“We gotta be quick, though,” Deacon says as he follows MacCready into the first shower stall. He sets the towels down on the bench that juts out from the wall, just inside. The shower itself sits deeper back in the wall. 

MacCready yanks his shirt up over his head and tosses it at Deacon, who fumbles to catch it. MacCready smirks again, the same heated smirk from earlier, as he slips the button on his pants open. He hadn’t even bothered to zip them up for the walk over. “Is that a challenge?”

Deacon doesn’t even try to fight off the answering smile tugging at his lips. He drops the shirt onto the bench. “If it needs to be.”

“Then you’re already losing.” MacCready’s pants fly across the stall and hit Deacon’s chest.

Deacon rolls his eyes, still smiling, and shoves the pants aside. He starts pulling his own shirt up over his stomach as MacCready reaches out to pull the tap. Then MacCready yelps, leaping back as the water sprays down. 

“Shi– _agh_! That’s cold!” 

Deacon laughs, pulling his shirt the rest of the way over his head. “Turn it toward the ‘H’ and give it a second.” 

MacCready shrinks back from the water and hesitantly reaches around it, curving his stomach out of reach. Deacon chuckles again as he works his pants free of his ankles. 

“Shut up.” MacCready jerks back after he manages to turn the tap. “This better be worth it.” 

“It will be.” Deacon says, stepping close behind him. He slides a hand over MacCready’s hip as he lifts the other, cupping the water and waiting for it to heat. 

“I really can’t believe this place is so untouched,” MacCready says, looking up at the showerhead. “In two hundred years, _no one_ found this?” 

“Well, Roxbury’s pretty trashed,” Deacon says. “It’s gotta be as bad as it looks if the super mutants didn’t find their way down here, so that’s one. Looked like the raiders had to dig to even find the Vault door, and that doesn’t open without the PipBoy anyway, so that’s two,” Deacon says. He ripples his fingers as the water turns lukewarm. 

“And University Point? You guys never poked around the pharmacy?” MacCready looks over at him. 

Deacon turns his eyes to the tiles across from them. “We… did. The Deathclaws. Smashed the windows in once, when we were still just… smashing windows.” It’s a bitter thing, the memory. He swallows against the taste it puts in his mouth. “We got attacked by a couple ferals we didn’t see behind the shelves. Got one of the guys pretty good before we took them down. But that got us caught, and the guards boarded the place up after, so… there wasn’t much reason to go snooping on the inside, after that. Come on, it’s warm.” 

Deacon slips under the spray, the water pelting his shoulders. He sighs and leans his head back a little, his eyes slipping closed as the heat splashes over his neck and carries away the haze of the memories. When he opens them again a moment later, MacCready’s watching him. His gaze follows the curving trail the water makes around Deacon’s collarbone and down his sternum. 

“You’re right,” he says, quiet enough that Deacon barely hears him under the sound of the spray. His eyes slide slowly back up to meet Deacon’s, and he smirks. “This is worth it.” 

Deacon snorts. “Come here, you horny bastard.” 

Deacon tugs him forward and turns them until MacCready stands beneath the shower head instead. 

“Oh.” MacCready’s shoulders sink down as the spray hits them. His head falls back the way Deacon’s had, the water soaking into his hair. “Oh my god. We have got to get one of these.”

Deacon laughs again. He leaves MacCready to the water for a moment and goes to retrieve the bar of soap he’d pulled out of his pack before they left the room. He lifts it toward the shower head to wet it down. 

“Turn around.” 

MacCready straightens his neck, opening his eyes and blinking the water out of them to look up at him. “What are you—”

“Come on, just turn around.” 

MacCready frowns, but turns so the water splashes onto his chest instead. He sighs at the rush of heat, and Deacon smiles a little to hear it. He passes the soap back and forth between his hands, lathering them up, and then leaves the bar in the soap dish bolted to the wall. Then he reaches out and runs his hands up MacCready’s back until he can dig his thumbs in around MacCready’s shoulder blades and up toward his neck. 

“Oh,” MacCready says again, another sigh nearly lost to the water.

“Good?” Deacon says. He repeats the motion once, and then again. He barely hears the hum of approval MacCready makes. 

He drags his thumbs higher, circling them up the back of MacCready’s neck, parting the wet hair now clinging there to press them under the base of MacCready’s skull. He rubs them there for a moment, a few deep passes across the skin, and then he soaps his hands again and moves them out over MacCready’s shoulders. 

“Thought, um—” MacCready turns his head a little, then cuts off as Deacon’s fingers massage the rounded deltoid muscle of his shooting arm. He tries again, “Thought you said we had to be quick.” 

“Didn’t say we couldn’t make it count.” Deacon slides a hand below MacCready’s armpit so he can roll his fingers down either side of MacCready’s bicep. MacCready groans, his head tipping back a little again. 

“There you go,” Deacon says in his ear, digging his fingers in smooth circles down toward MacCready’s elbow, then back up again. “Just let me…” He pauses, and leaves it there. “Just let me.” 

MacCready’s eyes open and fix on him. Deacon sees them in his periphery, feels them on his skin. He kneads his way down to MacCready’s forearm. The soap has long since washed away, but Deacon keeps going, opening MacCready’s palm under his thumbs. He slides his fingertips over MacCready’s knuckles and between his fingers, one by one. He hears a shudder of breath next to him. 

“Dee,” MacCready says softly. 

Deacon still can’t look at him. He curls MacCready’s hand up instead, pressing a kiss to the center of his palm. MacCready gently shakes his hand free and hooks it behind Deacon’s neck, pressing his elbow to Deacon’s chest, and tugging him down. Deacon leans around his shoulder to meet his mouth. 

The kiss is slow, a gentle, lazy slide of lips. But the way MacCready’s fingers flex against the back of Deacon’s neck flares heat down through his chest all the same. 

“You’re distracting me,” he says against MacCready’s mouth. 

“Mm-hmm.” MacCready pulls him back in. Deacon lets him steal another lingering kiss, then smiles into it and pulls away, reaching for the soap again. 

“You don’t have to do this,” MacCready says, as Deacon swirls the soap in his palm. 

“Let me anyway?” he says, barely loud enough to hear. He’s not sure he could put it to words if MacCready pushed him. He just… needs this. Needs to do this. Needs to be in this, this moment, as long as it lasts. 

MacCready studies him a moment, a sharp-eyed look that makes Deacon’s neck prickle. He looks like he’s going to say something. But finally he just nods, and Deacon shifts back behind him, relieved to be out of sight again. He draws soapy fingers over MacCready's other shoulder and then massages his way down in deep circles, bicep to wrist to fingertips. MacCready relaxes into the touch.

After one last, slow drag of his thumbs over MacCready’s palm, Deacon grabs the soap and sinks carefully down to his knees. He hears a gasp above him, even over the thunder of the shower, and it makes him feel sexy for the whole minute it takes for the hard floor of the stall to make an ache bloom up from his shins. Well, shit. He’d been lathering his hands up again, but he changes course, running the whole bar up from MacCready’s ankle and over his knee. He slides it back then, up the softer skin of MacCready's inner thigh, skating it up as high as he dares before circling it back the rest of the way behind his leg at the last second. MacCready lets out a sharp breath and looks back over his shoulder, scattering water drops down his back. 

“You’re killing me,” he says.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Deacon says, reaching for the other ankle.

The second pass across MacCready’s thigh, Deacon lets the soap brush his perineum before he pulls it back. MacCready’s calves tense, one foot stumbling forward to keep him upright, splashing water up Deacon’s arm. Deacon smirks. MacCready leans heavily against the tile with one arm and reaches behind his leg to grab Deacon’s wrist with the other. 

“Get back up here,” he says, strained. Deacon chuckles to himself. 

He's grateful MacCready’s too focused on bracing himself to watch Deacon stand. The fumble back to his feet is a little less than smooth with one hand still holding the soap bar, his shins making the floor squeak under them. The cracking noise his knees make is at least muffled under the spray. He tries to recover by leaning around where the water is pelting MacCready’s neck now, and fitting his mouth close to MacCready’s ear as he works the soap in his fingers again. “So impatient.”

MacCready turns his head a little where it’s bowed forward, squinting through the water. “You’re the one who said— _ohh god_.”

Deacon runs his soapy hands up over MacCready's ass, gently pushing his cheeks open, until he can reach between them. 

“I said we should make it count,” Deacon says.

He slowly slides his fingers down the cleft of MacCready’s ass, lingering to circle the pucker he finds there before sliding lower. MacCready sinks further forward onto his arms with a moan Deacon just barely hears.

Another day, he’d follow that trail with his tongue. He’d tease the clean skin, lick up the drops collecting on MacCready's tailbone before dipping down, and inside. But they really will be here all day if he follows that little fantasy, because he’s not about to rush it. He’d want to take his time, tease MacCready open against his mouth, take him apart. And then do it again.

So he lets his fingers run a slow trail instead, massaging MacCready’s perineum a little until the soap runs out. Deacon can see MacCready’s calves tensing again under the feeling. He smiles to himself, and takes pity. 

Lathering his hands one more time, he drops the soap in the tray. MacCready looks back over his shoulder at him again, biting his lip, his eyes lidded but _hungry_. The water pours over his shoulder and down his side. It makes Deacon’s breath catch.

“Fuck, Bobby, look at you,” he says. His cock had been stirring with interest at his wandering fantasy, but that look alone is enough to get him half hard. 

“Rather you touch me,” MacCready says, freeing one arm from the wall to grab Deacon’s hip and tug him forward, until MacCready’s ass rests right against Deacon’s thighs, and Deacon’s cock fits up against him. Deacon lets out a surprised groan that MacCready echoes. 

Deacon usually pushes back when MacCready gets impatient, draws it out even more, just to watch him squirm. It’s not often they even have the time for pushing back and forth, for long hours of teasing and touching that build, and build. Deacon likes to savor it. And he knows, for all the bluster and demand, that MacCready likes it too. But the morning is drifting. And the want in his gut is growing sharper. So he gives in, sliding his hands over MacCready’s hips and pressing them even closer together. He uses one hand to coax MacCready to straighten, and let his back rest against Deacon's chest, like it had last night. His other hand trails lower, down through the wet curls below his navel to take his cock in hand. 

MacCready moans and sinks back into him, his head falling back against Deacon’s shoulder. Deacon gives him a few long, teasing strokes, drawing out another groan, and then grips him a little tighter. He starts to find a rhythm, letting the water and what soap still clings to his fingers slick his way. 

He mouths a kiss under MacCready's ear as he works his hand. “Do you have any idea how hot you are like this? Damn…”

He noses his way through the wet hair at MacCready’s temple, leaving open-mouthed kisses on whatever skin he can reach before he leans down and runs his teeth over MacCready's earlobe. He strokes him all the while, growing faster the more MacCready shifts restlessly in his arms.

MacCready reaches back to grab Deacon’s hip again, and Deacon realizes he's been absently rutting against the cleft of MacCready’s ass, chasing the feeling to soothe the ache low in his abdomen. He slows the movement when MacCready’s hand finds purchase, and MacCready shakes his head against Deacon’s shoulder. 

“Don’t stop,” he pants, and Deacon feels his cock twitch in answer. 

Deacon lets go of MacCready’s chest for a moment to feel blindly back for the soap dish. He rolls the bar around his fingers again and then slides them down to slick the skin. Then he palms his cock, shuddering out a gasp, and rests it against MacCready’s ass again. He thrusts with purpose this time, letting his cock slide between MacCready’s cheeks. He strokes MacCready through the feeling, relishing the sound that slips out as he does. 

It’s not the most elegant rhythm, but he finds one anyway, thrusting up in time with the movement of his hand. It feels good. It feels incredible. And it’s barely more than a few minutes before it’s driving them both to the edge, leaving Deacon gasping in MacCready's ear. 

“Yeah, like that,” MacCready chokes out, his fingers tightening on Deacon’s hip. “God, just like that. I’m so close.”

“Fuck, you feel… so good,” Deacon murmurs. 

He’s stroking faster now, water warm between his fingers where he grips MacCready's shaft. MacCready’s breath comes in hot puffs against Deacon’s skin. He reaches up again, his hand curving around the back of Deacon's neck.

“God, Dee, I'm—oh, god.”

“Yeah, come on.” Deacon leaves another kiss in front of his ear. “I’ve got you.”

A few more quick strokes and MacCready comes with a sharp moan, going rigid in Deacon’s arms, trembling a little as Deacon works him through every wave of it. He lets MacCready lean his weight back against him for a few moments, water fanning down over his chest to wash him clean. Then Deacon shifts enough to wrap a hand around his own cock to finish himself off. MacCready turns so his side is pressed perpendicular to Deacon’s, and he leans his forehead against Deacon’s temple while he watches the motion of his hand, idly running his fingers back and forth over Deacon's chest. When Deacon comes, MacCready kisses his throat, and holds him until he stops panting. 

Finally, Deacon looks down at him, and they both break into smiles, laughing softly together. Deacon leans down to kiss him as he reaches for the soap again, this time for himself. MacCready beats him to it. 

“Nuh-uh. My turn.”

\----

“You’re disgusting, you know that?” 

Deacon laughs a little as Glory falls into step beside him. She’s caught him staring at the back of MacCready’s head, at the damp hair peeking out from under his hat. Deacon looks up at the rocky wall instead.

Anthony’s leading them out into the towering, half man-made cavern holding the Vault. Deacon cranes his neck as they step outside. Old utility lights wink at them from the walls, and from the rocky ceiling hundreds of feet above them. Red steel beams crosshatch the walls to trap the rock in, and as they round the far edge of the Vault prefabs, they see a massive slab of concrete rising above two abandoned subway tunnels. One is choked with dirt and rubble, but the pipes from the Vault’s water system disappear down the other, and Deacon can see lights trailing down the length. 

He follows the line of the wall, surveying the piles of dirt and scattered crates left around the cavern floor, until his gaze inevitably falls on MacCready again. He walks ahead of them with Anthony, talking quietly, sybillants bouncing in an echoing whisper around the cavern walls, not quite loud enough to grasp the shape of the words. MacCready turns his head a little and seems to catch Deacon’s eye. He smiles, and then goes back to the conversation. 

Glory notices, and scoffs. Deacon looks over at her. “It’s your fault, you know.” 

“Don’t remind me.” 

“Aw, come on. What happened to wanting me to get over myself and be happy?” Deacon says, tipping his head toward her with an obnoxious grin. 

“Go be happy over there where I can’t get any on me,” she says, curling her nose. Deacon laughs again. 

“Guess you won’t be making up to Sanctuary after all then,” Deacon says. “Wouldn’t want to put you off your appetite for—”

“Oh no, you absolutely are not getting out of this,” Glory cuts him off. “I expect high quality. I expect perfectly-cooked. And I expect to be doubly impressed since you weaseled out of it last night.” 

“Not my fault it’s winter!” Deacon says. 

“Excuses,” Glory says, shaking her head. “You are making up for that week of canned beans, and if you think the two of you being disgusting at each other is getting you out of that, you have no idea how strong my stomach is.” 

They follow a rusty maintenance staircase down into a lower passage. A few unused, half-finished Vault prefabs wait against the wall, dustier and more dirt-spattered for being left to the open air. Scattered clumps of dirt dot the rocky floor, along with a few thick holes, hints of molerats. Anthony leads them on, past where the last steel beams of the maintenance tunnel yield to limestone and darker rock. Anthony pauses at a natural column jutting down from the ceiling and points into another open cavern in the limestone, lit green by patches of mushrooms on the ground. 

“See all the broken shells?” he says, pointing to a few patches toward one of the limestone walls. 

“ _This_ is where it was?” Glory says, stepping close enough to look further in. “What is that smell — oh Jesus!”

She leaps back, swinging her minigun forward. Deacon and MacCready immediately reach for their weapons, but Anthony holds a hand up. “It’s okay! It’s okay, it’s dead, we made sure.” 

“You just _left_ it?” Glory drops the minigun, whirling around. Deacon walks a little closer. The smell hits him, a rancid, rotting smell that nearly makes him choke. He catches a glimpse of dark scales against the pale stone. 

“It was too heavy to move, even with two of us,” Anthony says, shrugging one shoulder. “And it was bleeding everywhere, because… you know, we _really_ made sure it was dead.” 

Glory slinks back from the cavern mouth. “Guess that makes sense. Hell if I’m coming this way next time, though, that shit stinks.” 

“It, uh… that space actually opens into the other passage too,” Anthony says with a wince. “Sorry.” 

Glory sighs. “Well, I guess I’d rather it dead than alive, but… ugh.” 

“You ever get those coming through in your cave, Bobby?” Deacon asks as they turn back down the main tunnel. It curls past the column and down a low slope that arches back up after a few feet, leading them up a steep path lined by a rickety railing. 

MacCready shakes his head. “No. Thank god. Bad enough with all the super mutants wandering around, don’t know what we could have done with a deathclaw trying to barrel in.” 

“Wait, you lived in a cave?” Glory says as they pass in and out of a blindingly bright utility light perched on a pair of rusting shipping containers. 

“He grew up in a cave,” Deacon says. 

“Why does everyone always say it like it’s so weird? Vaults are basically caves with better lighting and less sh—crap falling from the ceiling,” he says. 

Deacon opens his mouth but then shuts it and tilts his head, conceding. Glory says, “Not a lot of people live in those, either. So, what, you live next door to a mutie hive?” 

“Yeah, actually,” MacCready says, ducking his head under some jutting rock as Anthony turns them into a narrower passage, clicking on his PipBoy’s flashlight. “Wasn’t exactly our choice, but. They make really good targets for kids learning to aim.” 

“Kids? Multiple? You got siblings?” Glory says. 

“No. Well… I guess I don’t actually know,” MacCready pauses, scrunching his face up. Deacon nearly runs into his back. That pushes him back into motion. “No, I was dropped off as a baby. It was a settlement just for kids. No adults allowed. Kicked you to the curb on your sixteenth birthday.” 

“No shit?” Glory laughs. “And I thought I’d heard it all.” 

“That’s not even the best part,” Deacon says. “Bobby was their personal—”

“Deacon,” MacCready snaps, stopping, “I told you not to—”

“—sniper,” Deacon finishes, and MacCready relaxes in surprise. “Sharpshooting at what, twelve years old?” 

“Ten,” MacCready says faintly. He starts walking again, but he’s looking at Deacon with an expression Deacon can’t read in the dark with only the light of Anthony’s PipBoy. Deacon reaches out where he knows Glory won’t see, and squeezes MacCready’s elbow. 

“That explains a lot,” Glory says. “Didn’t even know kids could aim that young.” 

“Kids can do a lot of things no one gives them credit for,” MacCready says as the passage finally opens through a hole in a brick wall, leading them into what looks like some kind of basement. 

Anthony stops and points up some woodens stairs in the corner. “This leads up into the pharmacy. If we’d kept going down that big cavern, it would’ve led through another tunnel and into the subway station.” 

“Holy shit,” Glory says, glancing up at the open wooden platform above them. “Bullseye, this is the jackpot.” 

Anthony smiles. “Pretty easy to trap, too, I think. Come on, I’ll show you.” 

\----

They leave Glory at the edge of the North End, the Church’s spire a white beacon over the tops of the buildings around it where she turns down the street. Anthony leads Deacon and MacCready on, past a ring of shops around an old, dry fountain, and on to the bridge that crosses the river toward Bunker Hill. They’ll stop there for lunch before they part ways, Anthony for the airport, and Deacon and MacCready for Cambridge. 

“You think Joe has any of that soup left?” MacCready says when they reach the sidewalk across the bridge. “Pretty sure I could eat the whole pot, right now.” 

“Gotta stop skipping breakfast, man,” Deacon says. 

“Stop giving me reasons to, _man_ ,” MacCready says, looking over and flashing Deacon a smirk. 

Anthony snorts and shakes his head at them. MacCready bumps Deacon’s shoulder, and Deacon hides his growing smile by looking away, toward the empty houses they’re passing as they climb the sloping road. As he looks, he catches the glint of sunlight off of metal, once and then again, through a gap between two foundations. He stops walking, and squints. It comes again, and he realizes the metal is moving. 

“What’s wrong?”

Deacon looks back to find MacCready and Anthony paused on the sidewalk ahead of him, waiting. He holds up a finger, and creeps a little closer to the rusted car filling the rest of the space between the houses. He steps carefully around the old leaves scattered over the pavement beneath it, and finds a spot to crouch and lean in. Through the gap, he sees it again. Movement. And light. He can see it clearer now. It’s power armor, polished enough to catch the sun, so not raider scrap. As he watches, someone else steps in and out of view, clear enough that he sees an orange jumpsuit and a helmet. 

Deacon looks back up to see Anthony and MacCready inching closer, stopped now at the very edge of the house to his left. He jerks his head to beckon them forward. 

“Think we found one of those patrols Glory mentioned,” Deacon says as Anthony crouches down beside him. He leans back so Anthony can crane his neck around the side of the car. Anthony squints a moment, then frowns. 

“What are they doing here?” he mumbles.

“We already crossed raider territory. Shouldn’t be any super mutant nests this close to the Hill,” MacCready says quietly from where he bends low on the other side of the car’s frame. 

“They’re talking to someone,” Anthony whispers. He tilts his head, angling his ear toward the gap. Deacon does the same. 

“...sure you haven’t… suspicious?” is all Deacon catches at first. He’s pretty sure it’s Power Armor talking. 

“It’s Bunker Hill, man,” a smoke-grated voice answers, clearer and louder. Facing them, then, or standing closer. He can’t see anyone but Power Armor, but it’s a narrow gap to be peeking through. “Lotta people come ‘n go. I mind my business.”

Anthony frowns. He straightens, and then starts to shift back, mindful of the leaves. “Okay. Stay here. See if you can get closer. I’m going to go talk to them.”

Deacon holds up a hand. “Wait, Bullseye—”

“Trust me,” Anthony says. He darts a glance over to the gap again. “I… think I know who that soldier is. Just stay out of sight and listen.” 

He skirts the car frame and steps back down onto the street. When he starts down the sidewalk, MacCready stands and says, “Hey, what—?”

Deacon shushes him and waves him around the car. MacCready kneels again and crawls closer. “What’s going on?” 

“They’re interrogating someone,” Deacon says. “Asking about the Hill. Anthony’s gonna get them to talk. Says he knows the big rig.”

Mac leans in closer to peek through the gap over Deacon’s shoulder. “Might be that guy… the one that was at the party. Peppermint Dill or whatever his name is.” 

Deacon frowns, more uneasy at that thought. He’d worn a wig to Anthony’s “birthday” party last month, and the thick sweater and battered jeans he’s wearing now are a far cry from the tuxedo he’d worn that night. Still, the man knows MacCready, and the outside chance of being seen and recognized puts Deacon on edge. 

“I’m gonna get closer. Keep watch for me?” Deacon says. MacCready nods and picks his way back to the sidewalk, where he adopts a casual lean against the side of the house. Deacon turns back and steps carefully over the pavement and onto a pile of dirt in the corner. He leans his ear as close to the gap as he dares. 

He hears the gravelly voice talking again. “—think you oughta try Diamond City, pal.”

“Our reports indicate—”

“Paladin Danse?” 

Power Armor looks up, toward what must be the entrance to whatever courtyard or backyard they’re standing in. “Knight Nguyen! Excellent timing, soldier.” 

Anthony steps into view. Deacon sees him reach out, shaking the paladin’s hand. He nods to the side — to the jumpsuit, Deacon assumes. 

“All right, can I go now?” Deacon sees an older woman come into view behind Anthony, her grey hair a frizzy cloud half-smothered by an old, fraying wool cap. She puts one hand on her hip and looks at the paladin. 

There’s a pause, and then he says, “Very well, civilian. As you were.” 

The old lady scoffs loudly as she shoulders around Anthony, muttering something Deacon can’t make out. Anthony looks over his shoulder, probably watching her go, and then turns back to Danse. “What was all that about?” 

“Reconnaissance,” the paladin says. There’s another pause, and when he speaks again, Deacon has to strain to hear. “...received reports… synth activity… Bunker Hill.” 

“Synth activity?” Anthony repeats at a normal volume, bless him. Danse shushes him quickly. 

“...voice down, soldier. No telling where… have ears.” Well, at least the Brotherhood’s smart enough to be paranoid, even if any courser worth a damn would hear that power armor slamming into the sidewalk a mile off. 

Deacon sees Anthony make some kind of motion, and then suddenly the group of them is moving closer. Deacon slips back, pressing his pack into the foundation behind him. 

“Incoming,” MacCready says from the sidewalk. Deacon glances up. MacCready’s still leaning against the house, casually smoking a cigarette. He doesn’t look at Deacon as he says it. He’s getting good at this, Deacon thinks, with a little flash of pride. He reaches back and flips the switch of the stealth boy strapped to the bottom of his pack. MacCready shifts when Deacon doesn’t answer, looking into the alcove. All right, well, still room for improvement there, after all. 

“Deacon?” he says, starting to turn.

“I’m here,” Deacon says. MacCready frowns, eyes darting over the car for a moment. It seems to finally click, and he settles back again just as the old woman from the courtyard strolls into view. Deacon goes still, but she passes MacCready with barely a nod. Deacon breathes out, and then goes back to listening. 

“—so that could mean Institute activity, but it could also mean the Railroad,” Danse is saying, clearer now that they’ve moved so close. Dammit, Deacon missed whatever the “activity” was that tipped them off. But if it’s turning their gaze to Bunker Hill specifically to look for synths — _fuck_.

“Are you sure it’s synths, though?” Anthony says. “My Minutemen have been reporting a lot of raider activity in this area lately. We had to clear out an old school up the road that had taken several prisoners. It could’ve been escapees he was seeing, trying to hide from the raiders.” 

“He seemed fairly certain they wore garments with what we’ve determined to be Institute symbology. However, I would not discount your report,” Danse says. “We should bring this to the Prydwen’s attention immediately. Follow me, we’ll call a vertibird.” 

“Oh, right now?”

“Unless you have urgent business. This is high priority, Knight. From the Elder himself.”

“Understood, sir. I was meeting with some of my lieutenants, let me tell them something’s come up while you call the bird.” 

“Very good, soldier. Meet us on the bridge in ten minutes.” 

Deacon pushes away from the foundation as quickly as he can without making a sound, climbing around the car to reach the sidewalk. He switches off the stealth boy once he stands next to MacCready, who startles and drops his cigarette. 

“Son of a—” he yelps, stumbling back. He scowls and shoves lightly a Deacon’s shoulder. “Don’t _do_ that!”

“But it’s so much fun,” Deacon says, with a faint smile. He nods ahead of them, up the hill. “Come on.” 

“What? Where are we going?” MacCready says, stumbling after him. “What did they say?”

“Anthony’s coming, just walk for a second,” Deacon says, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder. If the Brotherhood crew is following him out, at least it’ll look like they were just strolling up to the Hill like traders. 

They stop on the corner, just in front of the steps leading up to the gate. Deacon finally chances a look back, and sees Anthony marching up the road, alone. MacCready’s still giving Deacon a questioning look, but he doesn’t ask again. 

“You heard?” Anthony says when he reaches them.

“Enough,” Deacon says. He glances around. Too risky to ask specifics in the open. “That was quick thinking, what you said. But we need to give our mutual friends a heads up.” 

Anthony lifts a hand. “Let me get more details. You said she’s got extra eyes out here, right?”

Deacon nods. Anthony blows out a breath. “Okay. They’re still at the info-gathering stage. I think I can push them to look elsewhere for a bit. Let’s meet back home in two days. I want to make sure there aren’t… _other_ eyes on this besides theirs.” 

He taps lightly at his PipBoy. Deacon knows what he means; he wants to make sure the Institute isn’t actually involved in this somehow, too. 

He gives Anthony another nod. “All right, but… hurry. I don’t like this.” 

“Two days,” Anthony repeats. “I’ll have news. Oh, and here.” He digs through his coat pockets until he finds a scrap of paper and passes it to Deacon. “That should be everything you need to know for the lab.” 

Deacon tucks the paper carefully into his jeans. “Thanks, Bullseye. Be careful.” 

“You too.” Anthony clasps MacCready’s shoulder and then turns back down the sidewalk. 

MacCready looks over at Deacon. “Okay, now are you going to tell me what’s up?” 

“Tinheads are getting a little close to the truth,” Deacon says quietly. “Anthony’s gonna go try to throw them off the scent, and figure out what’s going on.” 

“What was with them giving the old lady the third degree?” MacCready says, glancing back down the hill toward the house. 

“Tell you on the way out,” Deacon says. “Let’s get lunch.” 

MacCready frowns but lets Deacon lead him on toward the gate. 

\----

It’s early afternoon when they creep through the eerily quiet streets of Cambridge. Deacon feels something sour roll through his stomach at the sight of the old C. I. T. building, watching them from the shadows of the office towers around it. Nothing moves on the grounds as they pass, save a few loose pieces of rubble swaying when the breeze catches them. Nothing moves in the street, either. All they can hear is the water lapping at the edge of the road, and the distant creak of old steel. Neither of them speaks. The uneasy feeling that had gripped him outside Bunker Hill comes clawing back as they walk. 

Cambridge Polymer Labs, as it turns out, sits only a couple streets over from the C. I. T. campus. It’s a bland, concrete block of a building set back from the street. The lights around the doors still have power, and they splash the concrete a pale orange, an odd glow underneath the sunlight. 

“So what are we looking at?” MacCready asks, the first he’s spoken since they crossed into the outskirts of the town. He’s checking his rifle as he says it, squinting down at the magazine. 

Deacon’s had Deliverer in his hand since they left the Hill, but he holds it closer to his chest now. He pulls the paper Anthony had passed him back out, reading it over for the sixth time. He shakes his head. “No specifics. Just that we should be able to get the password off a computer inside, and what kind of password it’s supposed to be.” He looks around the entrance. “Super mutants and raiders usually have… louder decorating opinions.” 

“Gunners would’ve put up fortifications, and posted guards.” MacCready cocks the rifle. 

“You’ve seen those eyebots that wander around recruiting for this place, right?” Deacon says. “I think it’s this place, anyway. Sounds right.” 

“Yeah. I figured they were just, you know, Old World relics, but… what, you’re thinking trap?” MacCready glances at him. 

Deacon frowns. “I was just going to say maybe it’ll be robots, but when you put it like that…”

“Well, we’re sitting ducks the longer we just stand here, so—”

“Right. Yeah,” Deacon sighs. “I’ll take point.” 

Deacon turns his back to one of the doors, letting his pack rest against it as MacCready moves to hug the wall on the other side and reaches for the doorknob. He gives a silent count by tapping his finger on the top. One… two… three.

MacCready turns the knob and yanks the door back. Deacon waits a beat, listening for gunfire or voices. When nothing comes, he leans around the doorway, aiming Deliverer forward.

In contrast to the smooth, clean facade of the outside, the interior of the building is a wreck. Pieces of plaster litter a floor covered in a sea of shattered glass and torn paper. A reception desk a few feet from the door is split by a fallen beam, and framed from above by a mezzanine level teetering dangerously between two buckling columns. Most of the railing that once lined it lays smashed on the floor below. And in the middle of it all, hovering next to the shell of a computer, is some kind of Mr. Handy brand of robot. Deacon trains Deliverer on it as it glides forward. 

“Welcome to Cambridge Polymer Labs,” the robot says in a soothing female voice. “Employment opportunities await in the field of scientific research.” 

Deacon blinks and slowly straightens, lowering his gun. He hears the door creak behind him, likely MacCready looking around the edge. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Deacon says. 

“Employment opportunities await!” the robot says again. “Shall we begin your application now?” 

Deacon takes a quick glance around the lobby. He steps carefully forward until he can see inside a room that branches off to the left, holding nothing but a few chairs and a lot of rubble. He turns to look toward an opening in the wall across the room only to find MacCready already checking it. 

“It’s clear,” he says. He frowns at the robot. “What the heck is all this?” 

Deacon feels a smirk tugging at his lips. “Apparently, employment opportunities await us, Bobby.”

“We have many exciting and rewarding positions open right now,” the robot adds.

“Hear that? Exciting _and_ rewarding,” Deacon says, making MacCready scoff and roll his eyes. 

“Did that crap actually work back then?”

“Clearly not, if the positions are still open,” Deacon says, trying not to laugh.

“Shall we begin your application now?” the robot says again. 

Deacon breaks into a full grin. “You know what? Sure. I admire your can-do spirit. World might’ve ended, but that won’t stop science.”

“Come on, Deacon, we’re gonna be here all day if you keep messing around with that thing,” MacCready grumbles.

“Rude,” Deacon says. “She is clearly trying to do her job, be a gentleman.” 

MacCready groans and wanders a few steps away, shaking his head. He looks down a hallway behind the desk.

“Excuse his manners. The commute here was murder,” Deacon says in the mean time, still grinning.

“Of course. Due to increased demand in all fields, we have condensed the employment test accordingly. Question one: do you possess experience with polymer synthesis?” 

“He can’t even spell it,” MacCready says from where he’s peeking into another room off to the left.

Deacon throws him a look over the top of his sunglasses. “Yes, in fact, I do have experience in p-o-l-y-m-e-r s-y-n-t-h-e-s-i-s.” He pushes his sunglasses back up with his middle finger. He hears a smothered laugh across the room. 

“Calculating test results. I am pleased to offer you the position of ‘researcher.’ Expect a bright future in polymer research.” 

“Hear that, Bobby? I’ve got a bright future in p-o-l-y—”

“You’ll have a bright future with the stars you’ll be seeing when I kick your a—ugh.” MacCready waves off the rest of the threat. 

“Would you like the orientation before beginning your work in the labs?” the robot asks, tilting one eye. 

“Why, yes, that sounds lovely.” Deacon gives her another bright smile. 

MacCready holds up his arms, leaving his rifle dangling from his neck. “Deacon, come _on_.”

“Sorry, Bobby, I have very important polymers to get oriented into synthesizing,” Deacon says as the robot starts to lead him toward the room he’d peeked in earlier. 

“For god’s sake.” MacCready drops his arms and trudges over to follow. 

“Oh, I do apologize, but only employees are allowed beyond this point.” The robot circles around Deacon to hover in front of MacCready. “But please feel free to take a seat in one of our comfortable seating options in the lobby while you wait.” 

Deacon glances over as she gestures at the wall. He sees the frame of a single cushionless chair, and then a slab of concrete cracked in several places from its fall. He fights down another smirk when he sees MacCready had followed his gaze, his face scrunching up in annoyance. It makes Deacon want to kiss his nose. 

“Fine,” MacCready says, rolling his eyes again. “Fine, I’ll do the freakin’... whatever. Employ me.” Under his breath, he mutters, “This better be worth the caps.” 

“Let’s see what employment opportunities we have available,” the robot says. “Due to increased demands for staff in all areas—”

“Yeah, yeah, everyone wants a piece of the polymer action, got it, just do the question thing,” MacCready says, rolling his hand in the air. 

Deacon snorts into his fist. “I smell Employee of the Month over here.”

“Shut up.” 

“Question one,” the robot says, cheerful tone never faltering. “Do you have experience with polymer synthesis?” 

“Look, it sounds like you need help regardless, so let’s get down to brass tacks.” 

“Calculating test results. I am pleased to offer you the position of ‘sales coordinator.’ Expect a loquacious future haggling for military funding.” 

Deacon actually laughs aloud at the look on MacCready’s face. MacCready splutters, “What does that even—”

“Shall we begin your orientation now?” One eye swings back around to look at Deacon. 

“Lead the way, ma’am,” Deacon says with a sweep of his arm. 

“This is a giant waste of time,” MacCready says as he drops into one of the only seats in the room that hasn’t been crushed under fallen ceiling tiles. Behind him, the robot glides over to a projector sitting on an old wooden table that made some kind of miraculous escape from the ceiling carnage. She presses the button. Nothing happens. But she floats up to the front of the room as though this is normal, and she launches into some kind of history lesson about the lab’s founders.

“Think of it this way,” Deacon says once she gets going, “this might get us more access. If the robots in this place are still active, playing along might get us past them.” 

“Or we could just shoot them like we planned from the start. That would also get us past them.”

Deacon sighs. “Yeah, but this saves the bullets and we get out unscathed.”

“We always get out unscathed if you aim right,” MacCready says, snorting when Deacon flips him off again. “I think you just have a crush on the robot.” 

“Big eyes and a little fire in the belly _is_ my type.” That gets him an elbow to the arm, which just leaves him smiling. 

The robot eventually runs out of long-dead scientists to talk up and leads them through an ancient break room and down a short hallway to a locker room. She stops there, insisting they put on their “uniforms.” MacCready shakes his head and refuses to move. Deacon knicks a lab coat out of one of the lockers. 

“Always wanted one of these,” he says. MacCready rolls his eyes again. 

The robot then leads them into some kind of control room. She waves a mechanical arm toward a door on the other side of the panels. “The research staff will greet you on the other side of the clean room. Thank you for your attention, and welcome to the team.” 

The door slides open. The two of them step into the clean room. The wall’s ripped open on one side, and Deacon moves to look around the side. Just as he reaches it, he hears the door close again. A lock bolts into place. 

Through a glass viewing window, the robot says, “I’ve been instructed to inform you that Director Elwood has issued mandatory overtime due to uncompleted milestones. Consequently, staff will not be allowed to leave the labs until the Piezo—”

Overhead, decontamination taps click on and start to spray down. MacCready’s PipBoy begins to click rapidly. 

Deacon’s heart sinks into his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1) Because someone asked about it in the comments last time: I'm basically ignoring nearly all of the things you have to fight and kill in the actual Vault DLC, except for what I've already alluded to. So no, Anthony and Preston didn't have to kill a mirelurk queen to get clean water, it was just there. Just go with it. ;) 
> 
> 2) I feel I must once again reiterate that I don't hate Paladin Danse, I just really, really enjoy dunking on him because he's so srs army man. And him using the word "symbology" is a gift from me to me because it just makes me laugh every time. 
> 
> 3) I think the last scene is the most fun I've had re-purposing in-game dialogue. 
> 
> So, this whole Cambridge Polymer Labs quest wasn't even in my original outline and it blossomed into two chapters. This is how I end up writing novels when I set out to write modest, reasonable-length stories. Anyway, Ch. 4 is finished, and will go up once I have a draft for Ch. 5. I'm projecting that to likely be March, because I have several stories in the wings to share for Fluffy February, and have to figure out where exactly I want things to go from Ch. 4. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Stay safe and healthy!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MacCready and Deacon try to make it out of Cambridge Polymer Labs in one piece. A near-miss leads to a hard conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends. Sorry for the wait on this one. Chapter 5 was fighting me the whole way through. This is a longer chapter, I think maybe tied for the longest I've posted, so apologies. But it really all needed to be together, breaking it up would've lessened the impact, I think. I have to laugh at myself that I originally thought I'd have enough room for the last chapter and this one to be one chapter. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks as always to **serenityfails** for the beta work and encouragement. They really give the best pep talks. 
> 
> Warnings: canon-typical gore/blood description throughout; a brief PTSD-related panic attack experienced secondhand (if you need to skip, start from the paragraph that starts "Fucking hell" and resume at the paragraph that starts "He takes a deep breath, and then releases it," and I'll summarize at the bottom); chain-smoking to cope in the final scene

Deacon fists the back of MacCready’s collar and yanks him back as hard as he can, sending them both crashing backward against the rusty steel frame of the wall. The chemical spray hisses down from spigots in the ceiling, cascading to the floor, close enough even where they press up against the wall to splash a drop on the toe of MacCready’s boot. He scrambles back further, his rifle clattering awkwardly between his elbow and the wall.

“Son of a—!” he cries, choking off. 

Deacon looks again to where the wall’s been ripped open, a pile of debris and rotting insulation at the foot of it. He can’t see much of the room beyond, but there isn’t much of a choice. He darts around the accordion folds of the metal, dragging MacCready with him. His back hits a more solid wall next to a cabinet that once held a fire extinguisher. He wonders if he’d find it buried in that pile of wall pieces. A skeleton wrapped in a dirty, threadbare lab coat stares back at them from next to the door, as if the radiation shower hadn’t been enough of an omen. 

They’re standing in what feels like an anteroom, mostly empty, that opens into something larger where the wall ends. There’s a door at the far end, but it’s jammed at a slant in the frame, the cracks left showing little of what waits beyond but a dingy sliver of light. The window next to it is no better, too caked with dirt to show more than distant, indistinct shapes. He doesn’t catch any particular movement, at least. Well, no point in standing here waiting for the spray to stop. He glances back at MacCready and nods once toward the opening in the wall. He creeps down to the end of it, and feels MacCready hit the wall next to his shoulder moments later. Keeping Deliverer close to his chest, he leans his ear to the side and listens. 

Over the hiss of the clean room, he can hear the quiet hum of machinery that always seems to linger in these old buildings, power still drawing from somewhere to click on old air conditioning or run abandoned terminals. He doesn’t hear anything that sounds like footsteps. After a moment, the chemical spray finally cuts off, and everything goes suddenly, starkly quiet. He counts ten (rapid, racing) heartbeats, and then carefully banks his head around the corner. 

His eyes dart over every open space in the room that he can see before he really takes in the shape of it. He scans the floor, catches the corners, looks to the door he spots on the far side. Then he lets out a breath. He sees consoles riddled with meaningless lights and buttons, and a long table sunk down below the main floor under another pair of windows. A few ratty chairs circle it. A terminal sits on the edge.

“It’s clear,” Deacon says, easing up on his bent knees. He turns back to MacCready. “Are you okay? Did it—”

“I’m fine,” MacCready says, clipped. His face pinches even as his eyes flick over Deacon from head to toe, checking for blood. Satisfied, his brows bend in tighter, until he’s glaring. He folds his arms over the strap of his rifle. “So, _now_ you feel like playing nice with the robots?”

Deacon grimaces a little. He shoulders around the wall to step further into the room, just for an excuse to look away. “I didn’t know it was going to—”

“You didn’t know it was going to backfire?” MacCready cuts him off, swinging around Deacon’s side to stand in front of him again. “It _always_ backfires. You’ve got such a damn — such a soft spot for those things, we should’ve just—”

A prickling feeling starts at the back of Deacon’s neck. “All right, fine. I was wrong. We don’t have to get nasty—”

A muffled, wet gurgle cuts him off. Both of them tense and turn toward the windows. 

It’s still hard to see it clearly, but it looks like the windows look out onto some kind of vestibule between offices, or labs, or whatever they are. He can see the indistinct shapes of fallen furniture, of other windows across the way. And wandering in front of those windows comes a humanoid shape, its limbs jerking strangely as it walks. He doesn’t need a clear picture. The only thing that moves like that is a feral ghoul. 

“Shit,” Deacon says, shrinking back and dropping into a crouch. 

MacCready mirrors him, every muscle in his body going rigid. His eyes wide, he grabs for his rifle and clutches it until his knuckles whiten. Deacon grits his teeth. 

“What the f—” MacCready starts, and then curls his lip and smothers the rest, starting over. “We need to get out of here. _Now_.” 

He spins on his heel and marches back toward the clean room. Deacon reaches for him, but his fingers slip through air. He hisses MacCready’s name as loud as he dares. 

“What?” MacCready snaps, cocking his rifle. 

“We’re not getting out that way,” Deacon says, jogging after him. “You heard the robot. She sealed the door.” 

“There was a window,” MacCready turns and keeps moving. 

“You seriously think that glass isn’t bulletproof? In a clean room?” 

“Well we saw what assuming crap got us last time,” MacCready spits, scowling again. “We’re trying it my way now.” 

“You’re going to waste your damn bullets,” Deacon says. MacCready ignores him and marches back into the room. 

Deacon hears the muffled voice of the robot starting to say something, and then the thunder of the rifle. He tenses when he hears the bullet ricochet and wrench through the metal framework of the wall. There’s a moment of silence, and then the robot starts speaking again. MacCready stomps back out of the room, kicking at the pile of debris on the floor as he goes. He bites out a curse he doesn’t bother to correct, and then glares at Deacon. 

Deacon just tightens his jaw again and looks away. After a moment, he pushes back off the wall and makes a careful walk back toward the main room. 

“Where are you going?” MacCready stage-whispers. 

“To check the computer,” Deacon whispers back. 

“The computer?” He hears MacCready start to stalk after him, then stop short. Probably realizing how close he is to the windows. His steps slow, but his voice comes again, closer. “Deacon, I’m done playing around with this crap, we need to get _out_ of here.” 

“Maybe there’s another way to trigger the door,” Deacon says, sliding himself into the ripped desk chair. “And we still need to get the password, anyway.” 

“The password?! Fuck the—” MacCready starts, too loud. He makes a frustrated noise and lowers his voice again. “Forget the fricking password, there are ferals right outside.” 

“I know that, all right? But this whole thing is worthless if we come out empty-handed.” Deacon starts tapping the terminal awake, waiting for the password symbols to fill the screen. 

MacCready climbs down to the subfloor where the table sits. “You should’ve thought of that before playing with the damn robot! Password or no password, we are getting the heck out of—”

“Anthony’s counting on this!” 

MacCready’s mouth snaps shut. A spike of guilt wedges under Deacon’s sternum the moment the words leave him. Another grunt from outside splits the silence that drops, leaden, between them, along with the slap of bare, warped feet on the vestibule floor. 

“Fine.” MacCready practically snarls it. He shoulders up to the window, his head just barely reaching the bottom of it. 

“There might be a security system,” Deacon offers more gently, nodding at the computer even though MacCready won’t look at him. “Maybe a robot control—”

“Just do what you have to do,” MacCready says tightly. He cranes his neck up until he can see over the edge of the window, pulling his rifle close again. 

Deacon sighs quietly through his nose. He sets Deliverer down next to the keyboard. 

He’s not exactly a computer expert. He usually leaves the fiddling to Tinker Tom, who could practically write the damn things love letters in their own inscrutable code. But he _had_ been a nosy kid. And the old halls at the University were full of relic terminals like this, just waiting for someone to pick at them. He got pretty good at cracking the simpler ones, after awhile. Tink’s showed him a trick or two for the harder ones, but he only really pokes at them if he has to. He gets through this one in two tries — not bad — and finds himself looking at a collection of project notes and a message relay inbox. 

The silence across from him has teeth. He can feel it gnawing at the side of his neck, prickling up his shoulders. He doesn’t need to look to know MacCready’s glaring daggers through the glass. The storm’s going to break the minute they get out of this. Wonderful. And the day started off so nice. He tries to focus as he skims through the messages in the inbox first. 

A few are just broken pieces of some larger conversation about a project these scientists were working on, and about the bombs going off, and the lab locking down. The guy in charge sounds like he was a real piece of work. But none of it tells him anything useful. Then, just as he hears MacCready shift his feet impatiently for the third time, his eyes snag on the words, “the isotope containment is leaking.” 

Okay, well… shit.

The final message at least offers him something better. “I’m getting us out,” the subject line says. Do tell. 

When he finishes, he murmurs, “I have good news, bad news, and worse news.”

He hears a scoff from the window. “Just spill it.” 

“Fine. Good news is one of them cracked the security system.”

“One of the — who?”

“The — the scientists, whoever,” Deacon says, flicking his fingers toward the vestibule outside. “One of them hacked into security. He says setting it off unlocks the doors, but it also triggers the alarms and arms the building. We’ll have to fight our way out.” 

MacCready sighs. “That’s what I wanted to do in the first place. Is that the bad news?”

Deacon bites the inside of his cheek. “No. The bad news is… the terminal we want is somewhere, uh…” He winces. “Somewhere out there. I don’t know which one it is.” 

“For f—for god’s sake. So we gotta go out there and check every fricking room?” Out of the corner of his eye, Deacon can see MacCready glaring at him. “This place is probably crawling with ferals!” 

Deacon winces again. “I said it was bad news.” 

“Deacon—” MacCready’s voice drops into a warning. “I’m not joking around about this, do you get me?” 

“I’m not laughing,” Deacon says, finally looking over at him. The look on MacCready’s face hits Deacon like a slap. His eyes swerve over to the window instead. 

Deacon knows how he feels about ferals, knows that they make MacCready edgy and drag up the kind of bad memories that have claws. Deacon gets it. But they’ve faced them down before. MacCready’s a good shot. The best. Deacon’s getting better. They can get out of this. They have options. Is MacCready really that pissed that Deacon fumbled a plan? It’s not like he knew this was going to tip sideways this hard. Sure, fine, he’s usually a little more paranoid, but… 

“So what the f—what the heck is the worse news?” 

Deacon does look away this time, back to the computer. “There’s a radiation leak wherever they were keeping their chemicals.”

“Jesus Christ.” 

MacCready doesn’t bother correcting that one. Deacon sighs again and taps back up the menu to hit the project notes. He hears another restless shuffle. 

“So are we doing this, or what?” 

“Just — give me a minute, I’m trying to see if I can figure out which lab this guy was in.” 

MacCready blows out a sharp breath, but doesn’t say anything else. Deacon scans over the messages again, then finally clicks into the project notes. He nearly gives up after the third word he couldn’t pronounce with a gun to his head, but the titles of the last two entries veer away from the science jargon, so he opens those instead. 

“Okay,” he says aloud as he scrolls to the bottom, “Doesn’t say where he was, but — it’s locked, anyway.” 

“Of course it is.” 

“But they pulled down the ceiling to get to him in… C1. So. If we find that, we’ve got a way in.” 

Deacon chances a look over. MacCready’s squinting out the window, standing on tiptoe with his rifle pulled back into his chest to give him room. 

“It’s… above us. On this side.” He drops back on his heels. He glances back and then nudges his nose toward the window. “It’s C3 and C4 over there.” 

Deacon purses his lips and nods. He pushes the chair back, wincing a little when it crunches over a few fallen bits of tile. Then he stands and pulls his pack off his shoulder and down onto the table. “All right, I’ve got two stealth boys. They should last us half an hour each. You take one of them and Deliverer, and I’ll—” 

“Wait, why the gun?” MacCready furrows his brow. 

“Silencer. If we do this quiet, maybe we’ll keep them from rushing us.” 

MacCready rolls his eyes. “I get that, I’m not an idiot. Why are you giving it to me?” 

Deacon presses his palms into the table and leans on them hard, trying to keep his voice level. “Because you’re the better shot, MacCready, and we both know it. And when you chew me out for getting us into this I want it to be in one of those nice rooms at the damn Starlight hotel. Our chances are better with you. Happy?”

That seems to pull a little of the tension from MacCready’s shoulders, at least. He presses his lips together tightly and finally just nods, wrapping his fingers around Deliverer’s grip. He reaches into his coat and pulls a pistol from one of the holsters that hide beneath it. He slides it across the table to Deacon. 

“Save the stealth, though,” MacCready says, quieter. “In case we really need it.” 

“It’ll be easier to avoid the ferals—”

“And harder to see each other.” MacCready’s frown tightens. “So just. Save it.” 

Deacon looks away but doesn’t push it. “All right. Let’s get the rooms across the way first.” 

“Why bother? Let’s just get upstairs.”

“I don’t know which terminal has the password.” 

MacCready works his jaw for a second, glaring down at the table. “Fine. But make it fast. Then upstairs, in the ceiling, cut on security, make a run, get out.” 

“It’s probably going to piss off the robot, too, so…” 

“Sure, fine, whatever. Wanted to shoot it the second I saw it. Let’s just… get this over with.” 

Deacon shoulders his pack again with a grunt. He grabs the pistol and nods toward the vestibule. 

\----

Deacon’s surprised how quiet the door is when it sweeps open in front of them. He expects creaking metal, rusty grinding, something, but it just slides quietly back. MacCready crouches in the doorway and raises Deliverer to eye level while Deacon braces his shoulder against the doorframe and peers carefully around it. The feral they saw hovering by the lab across from them hasn’t moved, other than those faint twitches that keep pinching its shoulders or making its fingers jerk. He’s always wondered what it is that makes them do that, if it’s nerves firing from melted brain signals or if it’s muscles breaking down, or what it is. MacCready doesn’t give him much time to wonder now. He takes a breath, and then Deacon hears the muted pop of the barrel. The back of the feral’s head tears open, streaking blood across the window and down the fluttering shreds of the lab coat still clinging to its limbs. It slumps into the wall and slides to the floor, rolling to a stop against the wall. MacCready lets out another breath, and Deacon’s shoulders start to ease.

And then another grunt comes. Through the blood-spattered window, Deacon sees a few flickers of movement. His eyes dart to MacCready, who’s already lifting the pistol again before Deacon can even open his mouth. It takes a moment for the feral to jerk into clear view, its melted face bobbing forward and back with wordless grunts. When it leans halfway out the door, MacCready squeezes the trigger. The shot hits it in the temple, pitching it sideways. It topples over the sprawled legs of the first feral and lands in a clump in the doorway. 

That wakes a third. Deacon hears the strange, wet smack of its feet somewhere far to the left, behind a tower of collapsed desks at the room’s center. There’s a splash, and then a weird little gurgle. The footsteps stop. They wait. 

They wait long enough that they exchange a look, and a frown. Deacon looks out again. There’s another feral laid out, limp, across the top of the desk tower, but it doesn’t seem to be moving, aside from one foot dangling a little. Deacon squints at the next room over, but all he can make out are shelves. 

He opens his mouth to whisper that they might have to move, but then MacCready’s lifting the gun again. Deacon darts a glance back in time to see a bullet pierce that swaying foot. The leg twitches, but the body doesn’t move. All right, well, probably good to make sure, but — 

The footsteps start up again. Ah. The noise, to draw it out. Smart. The feral groans, a sound that makes Deacon’s skin crawl, and then stumbles through a puddle and into the center of the room. Whatever clothing it once wore long ago rotted away, leaving nothing but warped, yellow flesh clinging to brittle bones. This one gets a hitch of breath out of MacCready. Deacon looks down, concerned, but MacCready just fires again. Deacon doesn’t watch that one drop. Instead he watches MacCready scowl and grit his teeth, his shoulders high and held in a tight line against his pack. 

“Bobby—” Deacon starts.

MacCready turns the scowl on him. “Let’s go, pick a room.” 

Deacon presses his lips together. “Left side.” 

They skirt across a little rabbit trail of floor tiles to avoid the aspiring lake of a puddle just outside the door, and the fallen desks. Cracked pipes peek up, jagged and black, through the cloudy water on the floor. Several other puddles line the path to the room Deacon picked, which turns out to be storage. Deacon swipes a few stimpaks and fresh gauze packets out of a first aid kit near the door, and then motions MacCready to the next room. 

As they climb over the bodies slumped, unmoving, in the doorway, nothing greets them inside except an array of lab equipment along the wall and dust-streaked glassware strewn across the counter. Further in, a second room waits, this one lined with panels and consoles like the one they started in, all of them blinking lights and colors. But this set also has a terminal bolted to the wall, leaning down between two viewing windows. As they draw closer to the glass, the PipBoy at MacCready’s wrist begins to click, and click, and click. They both look at it, and then at the window. 

Well. Found the leak. 

“Type fast,” MacCready says, yanking open the snap front of the pouch on his thigh. He fishes out a pair of Rad-X pills and drops one into Deacon’s palm. Deacon swallows it dry and types. Fast.

The first word he tries doesn’t take. He grunts and arrows over to another, counting the letters, and tries again.

“Damn it,” he mutters.

He’s scanning down the list again when MacCready’s hand clamps down on his bicep. Hard. Deacon looks up in confusion to find MacCready staring at one of the windows, his eyes round and wide. Deacon follows his gaze. Across the platform, a vaguely human-shaped creature covered head to toe in bulbous, glowing skin shambles through a litter of broken tile pieces and rust chips, right in front of a security door. 

Oh fuck. Oh _fuck_.

“If we trigger the alarm,” MacCready says slowly, voice strained tight, “is that door going to open?”

“I – I don’t – “ Deacon swallows. He starts typing again.

Third time’s the charm.

The computer opens up a short list of command options that begin and end with opening that door. There’s a warning in big capital letters across the top that Deacon doesn’t need. Nothing about generating a password, or finding one, or doing anything else with the security system. Doubt starts scratching at the back of his head. If the terminal they need is dead, or blown out, or the security system is too degraded to trigger, or…

He pulls his hands away from the keyboard to stop his thoughts in their tracks. “This one controls the door, so maybe we’re good, if we don’t touch it.” 

MacCready mutters something Deacon doesn’t catch and tightens his grip on Deacon’s arm. “Upstairs, then. Come on, let’s move.” 

“All right, Jesus,” Deacon says, bristling a little as MacCready all but drags him back out into the lab. He pulls his arm free when they clear the door.

MacCready shoulders around the counter. “I don’t know how much clearer I can say that I want this done so we can get out of here.” 

“I’m not exactly trying to build a vacation home here,” Deacon mutters. “I’m just trying to do this right the first time.” 

MacCready stops walking. “The _first_ time?”

“Yeah.” Deacon looks at him. “Look, if we don’t get it, someone’s going to have to come back and try again. They need this. And I don’t want them to have to do it with that door open, if security does release it.” 

MacCready mutters to himself again, and all Deacon catches is “— _not_ happening,” but he just lets it lie. MacCready swings himself toward the door and takes the lead again, back out into the vestibule. They pick their way through brown puddles and over slippery floor tiles to reach a slouching staircase. The railing leans out on one side, and is starting to collapse on the other. MacCready slows his steps and tests his weight on each stair. The metal creaks under their shoes, enough to send a nervous flip through Deacon’s stomach, and have him grasping for the bent railing. Still, nothing breaks beneath them, and they make it to the top step together. 

MacCready pauses there, head swiveling around the open mezzanine. It’s filled with scattered desks and filing cabinets, and an ancient plastic ficus in one corner. Deacon looks past it all to the next office, around to the right. There’s a second one on the left, but the walkway’s crumbled into a useless gap tooth spread of tiles that looks about as solid as wet paper. He hopes that’s the office they opened the ceiling to reach, because he’s not sure how the hell else they’re going to reach it. He turns back around to examine the ceiling, which yawns open over some of the desks to the right, drooling dirty insulation down over the broken terminals. 

He’s studying the distance from the ceiling to the desks, wondering if it’s as high as it looks, because it looks _way_ too high, when he hears a shot pop off next to him. He turns sharply.

Yellow arms mottled with red flail up from under a desk and then fall with a heavy thump. He scans the floor quickly on the other side, and silently grabs MacCready’s arm to point to another, mostly hidden behind a chair. MacCready moves forward slowly, keeping to a crouch, to get a better angle on it. Deacon follows. They crawl close enough to a window in the back wall to make MacCready’s PipBoy start clicking again. MacCready’s eyes widen. He whips around and shoots the feral before the sound can wake it. The body twitches once and then rolls, limp, to rest at the foot of the desk. They both sigh in relief. 

They do a quick sweep of the rest of the floor, checking behind the desks and in the corners. When they meet up again, MacCready gestures off to the left with Deliverer’s barrel. “There’s a terminal there. Do your thing. I’m checking up ahead.” 

Deacon sighs. “Don’t get too far.” 

MacCready just gives him a look and then turns away, checking the clip as he goes. Deacon keeps the annoyed flick of his eyes to himself, tucked safely under his shades. He moves to the terminal, an older model scuffed with ceiling dust, and presses a button. He glances up as he waits for it to boot and watches MacCready creep across the walkway. The floor creaks a little under his boots, too warped by water and decay to hope to muffle his footsteps. Deacon spares a glance ahead, at the viewing windows of the office, but no movement catches his eye. He turns back to the terminal when it beeps.

He gets this one on the first try. It’s another inbox, message fragments that are mostly bickering and announcements. Nothing useful. Damn it. Doubt twists up through his thoughts again, and he shoves it down. He reaches over and taps twice on the wall in front of him to get MacCready’s attention. 

He’s in the middle of peering around the doorway, and pauses to look over his shoulder. Deacon points at the terminal and shakes his head. MacCready sighs and jerks his head toward the door. Deacon makes a careful climb across the floor to join him. 

By the time he reaches the doorway, MacCready’s already gone in ahead of him and checked the supply closet that sits to the side. All that seems to be waiting for them is a skeleton tangled around the wood of a rotted office chair near the back. As he draws closer, Deacon finds a liquor bottle near the edge of the desk, and a handgun on the floor. He doesn’t need to read the note pinned to the empty terminal in front of it. 

“Jesus,” he mutters, shaking his head. He picks up the gun and checks the clip. Five more bullets. He tucks it into his waistband under his pack, where Deliverer usually goes. He eyes the liquor bottle, tempted, but doesn’t reach for it. 

“So. Nothing,” MacCready snips behind him. “Again.”

Deacon feels another flare of anxiety flash through his chest as he looks away. His gaze lands on the back corner of the office, where the ceiling’s been pried open, as promised. Rust-eaten piping and insulation pour down over the floor, propped up by a desk to make a rickety ramp. Deacon reconsiders that drink. 

“Guess this leads to the last room,” he says. 

“And if that terminal’s a dead end?” MacCready asks, looking at him sharply. 

“Then we make a new plan!” Deacon throws his hands up. Something burns up the back of his neck, and in the back of his throat. “I don’t like this anymore than you do, okay? I don’t enjoy this. I don’t want to be trapped in here. I don’t want to go up in that fucking ceiling. I want to get out of here. But I also want to do my job. Lives are depending on this. So just… can you _please_ just stuff it until we get out of here? You can rip me a new one all you like when we’re clear, okay?” 

He stalks a few steps away, leaning on a shelf, letting that hot feeling bleed away. MacCready doesn’t say anything. Deacon doesn’t look at him. After a moment, telling himself as much as MacCready, he says, “Anthony knows where we are. I still have the walkie. If we’re trapped, it won’t be longer than a couple days. We cleared the ferals. We keep that last one locked up, we keep to high ground, and we wait it out until he’s in range.” 

He hears shifting. MacCready’s voice softens a little. “Okay, I… okay. Let’s… just finish this and… we’ll go from there.” 

Deacon finally turns. MacCready starts to climb up onto the desk, but Deacon snags his shoulder. “Let me go first.” 

MacCready frowns. “Why? Thought you said—”

It comes out fast, with Deacon’s eyes squeezed shut, like he’s ripping it out of his throat. “Because part of it’s torn open over the desks outside and if I freeze up because it’s so damn high up then you have to push me to keep going.” 

Whatever annoyance was left melts off MacCready’s face completely. “You… crap, you really weren’t kidding about heights?”

“No,” Deacon says, a cracked whisper. “I really, really wasn’t.” 

MacCready looks at him for a moment. Deacon drops his eyes to his feet. He hears MacCready swallow. “Okay. I… I’ve got you.” 

Deacon nods. He holds out MacCready’s pistol. MacCready takes it and presses Deliverer back into Deacon’s palm. He hooks two of his fingers over the side of Deacon’s hand as he does, squeezing a little. Deacon takes an uneven breath, and looks up into the ventilation shaft above them. 

There’s no way to do this quietly. Like the floor outside, the metal clatters and whines under their feet as they climb, and dips a little under their weight. He keeps a hand pressed to the side wall, though he knows there’s nothing to grab if the bottom gives out. The only comfort he finds is knowing nothing else is in the shaft with them. Even a radroach’s skittering steps would echo off the metal, let alone a feral trying to crawl through. He keeps himself crouched and takes slow steps. He can hear pieces of the ceiling tiles raining onto the floor below them. His stomach swoops, and he grips Deliverer tighter, just for something to hold. 

He stops when they reach the gap gorged into the shaft over the mezzanine. It’s not quite as high as it had looked, but it’s still raking his nerves to look down at the desks below. He can see the sprawled body of the feral, its head lolled under one of the desktops, its blood pooling out. It’s still a long way to fall. 

His shoulders lurch up when he feels a touch to one of them. Warmth seeps in through his sweater. MacCready wedges his hand around Deacon’s pack and squeezes once. Deacon takes another breath, angles his feet to the side, and starts to shuffle across the narrow space next to the opening. More dust falls across the desks below. 

Halfway across, one of the tiles slides under his foot. Deacon scrambles back, his footsteps a thunder through the gap below, and he hears the tile crash down on the back of a chair. A hand clamps tight around his waving arm. He freezes, and waits. The rest still seems to hold. He finally looks over his shoulder, and gives MacCready a shaky nod. MacCready loosens his grip. 

He has to straddle that unexpected gap to get the rest of the way across, but none of the other tiles crumble. When he makes it past the gap he leans for a moment against the side wall, panting, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. He watches every step MacCready takes across, only daring to move forward again when he’s out of reach of the gap, too. 

Rust flecks swipe across his shoulder as he rounds one more corner. He curls his nose, trying to brush them away, and so it takes him a moment to notice something sprawled over ductwork ahead of him. He startles and nearly topples backward, but MacCready catches his pack. They stare down the shaft. 

“Is that—?”

“Yes.” MacCready sounds completely unnerved. 

A skeleton is pitched forward across the floor, head and shoulders leaning over another gap. This opening at least looks symmetrical, like it’s there on purpose. Threadbare slacks and a tattered shirt still hug the skeleton’s bones. Deacon crawls carefully around it to peer down into the room below.

He sees a counter directly below, just high enough that he should be able to slip down onto it without too much effort. He sees a microscope and a few more pieces of glassware on it, and parts of the floor. The rest of the room spreads too far to the right to see. 

Deacon plucks at the straps of his pack, and sets it to the side. No reason to have that pushing down on top of him while he tries not to topple to the floor. Then he straddles the opening, turning his back to the skeleton because really, he does not need that thing staring at him. He stretches one foot down carefully until his toe taps the counter. The ductwork under his hands creaks, and he lets go a little too quickly in surprise, stumbling his footing and kicking the microscope onto its side. But he doesn’t fall. He crouches there for a moment, face almost pressed to the window, and then slowly slides back toward the edge, swinging his foot down again. 

And then he hears a loud groan behind him. 

Footsteps smack across the floor, too fast. Deacon whips around in alarm in time to see the blur of an arm clamping down over his shoulder. The feral yanks him back, hard. Deliverer clatters to the floor. 

“Fuck!” Deacon yells. He hits the ground hard, spare gun driving up into his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. The feral scrabbles over him, growling, hand still locked on his shoulder. Deacon shoves at its chest in time to knock it back as it’s reaching for his face. He holds it back with both hands, legs kicking out at nothing, blindly searching the floor next to him for Deliverer. He thinks he hears his name, but it’s hard to hear anything over the feral’s snarling. It scratches at his shoulder, fingers digging in, and Deacon shouts in pain. 

Then a gunshot echoes across the lab. The snarling cuts off into a wet choking noise. Blood and fluid spatter down over Deacon’s chest, coating his lopsided sunglasses, his sweater, his neck. The feral slumps forward against his palms, all its weight suddenly crushing Deacon’s wrists and the part of his stomach it had been straddling. He shoves at it again, and it collapses to the side, more blood and fluid sloshing down on the floor next to his head, with more than half of the creature still strewn across his legs. He’s trying to kick free when the body is wrenched off him all at once, and shaking hands find his face. 

“Dee?” MacCready says, voice breaking. 

Deacon starts to answer, but the air catches in his throat. He coughs, and tries to sit up, pushing his elbow under him. A sharp ache drives through his shoulder as he leans his weight, and it makes him groan. MacCready looks over him in alarm. His hand goes tight around the back of Deacon’s neck as he helps Deacon sit up. 

“I’m okay,” Deacon rasps, wincing. “Think it just bruised me.” 

“Fucking hell.” MacCready yanks Deacon into his chest, wrapping his arms so tight under Deacon’s that it makes Deacon cough and grimace again. MacCready barely seems to notice. He doesn’t seem to care about the blood on Deacon’s sweater, either. He’s panting, his chest pulsing against Deacon’s, faster and faster. And he’s shaking. Deacon can feel it everywhere they touch. His fingers bunch tight into the back of Deacon’s sweater. Startled, Deacon closes his arms around MacCready’s shoulders, gritting his teeth through the pain that clenches in his own. 

“It’s okay,” he says again, uncertain. 

He feels MacCready shake his head, and pull him in, impossibly closer. He keeps panting, breath sawing in and out of his chest. He clutches at Deacon like if he lets go, Deacon’s going to disappear. The same way he holds him when he claws his way out of a nightmare. 

Oh. Deacon stills. He stares at the wall over MacCready’s shoulder, but it’s not the rusty metal he’s seeing. It’s the dark, wet concrete of a traffic tunnel under the edge of the city, with dead ferals littering the puddles that soaked the road outside the torn back end of the bus they’d been standing in. He remembers the horror he caught in MacCready’s eyes, and the way his pistol trembled in his grip. The way he gasped for air. Panicking. Seeing something Deacon couldn’t. A story Deacon didn’t think he cared to know, playing out in MacCready’s crumpling expression. 

He knows the story now. He watches MacCready relive it in his sleep, still. Deacon feels his heart crack open. He turns his face into MacCready’s neck and tightens his arms.

“I’m okay, Bobby,” he says with purpose this time, muffled into MacCready’s skin. He’s not sure MacCready can even hear him. Deacon cups the back of his neck, fingertips brushing what little hair his hat doesn’t cover. “I’m okay.” 

He feels MacCready’s breath hitch in his chest. His fingers sink deeper into Deacon’s sweater. 

Deacon strokes his neck, and turns his head a little to angle it toward MacCready’s ear. “Breathe with me, Bobby, okay? Come on. Breathe with me.” 

He takes a deep breath, and then releases it, mouth pressed close against MacCready’s jaw. He does it again. “Easy. Easy, love. Breathe with me.”

It takes a few minutes. Deacon keeps running his fingers over MacCready’s neck, and the ends of his hair. Gradually, MacCready’s chest starts to move with Deacon’s. His fingers begin to uncoil. Deacon can finally shift in his arms, enough to get a look at his face. 

He’s pale, his red-rimmed eyes the only color in his face. He looks sick with fear. Fear for Deacon. Jesus. Though his breathing eases, MacCready can’t stop shaking. Deacon still feels it under his arms. And he feels thrown by it. 

He didn’t think… He knew MacCready didn’t like ferals. He knew why MacCready didn’t like ferals. He just didn’t think… didn’t realize… didn’t make the connection. All the anger, the demands to leave? It wasn’t just about Deacon making some stupid tactical error. Maybe it wasn’t really about Deacon at all. It was coming too close to this. To losing someone like this. Again. A fear Deacon should know better than anyone. It was MacCready trying to stop this from happening at all.

Deacon shifts his arms until he can fit a hand to MacCready’s cheek. MacCready’s eyes shut immediately at the touch. A stray tear blinked loose slides down his cheek to pool at Deacon’s thumb. Deacon leans around the brim of MacCready’s hat to press his forehead against MacCready’s temple. He pulls back after a moment to see MacCready struggling to keep his face from crumpling again. He turns into Deacon’s palm and tries to draw in a breath. 

“We need to get out of here,” he says again, his voice shredded. He finally lets go of Deacon’s sweater. 

Deacon watches him for a moment. He doesn’t drop his hands until MacCready looks at him again and says, “Please.” 

Deacon nods and unwinds his arms, wincing as the ache in his shoulder pulls. MacCready helps him to his feet and then turns away toward the window, sniffing, spreading his hands over the counter. Deacon watches him take another deep breath, his shoulders pulling up and then dropping with it, and then Deacon turns to step around the feral’s carcass toward the terminal waiting against the wall. 

If this doesn’t fucking work…

But it does. The first word he hits opens the menu, and Deacon barely smothers a shout of pure triumph when he sees a command prompt for generating a password. There’s an empty holotape already in the terminal. He pulls it out and stuffs it into his pocket, then clicks back through until he finds the command to trigger the security system.

“I got it!” he says, straightening. He turns back around to see MacCready pulling their packs down from the ceiling. MacCready gives him a look of relief. 

Deacon goes to the window and leans to check the walls of the vestibule. Two laser turrets wait, dormant, on the walls. He can’t see any others. He makes his way to the door and flips the lock, pulling a few times before it gives. Another twinge of pain spikes across his shoulder as he does, and he falters, hissing. He waits until the pain passes, then leans out and shoots the turrets down with his good arm, one after the other. They both crash down into the puddles below. 

“No easy way down,” Deacon says, turning back. “We’ll have to jump for it and book it.” 

“I don’t care,” MacCready says, “Whatever gets us gone. Come here.” 

He’s rooting through another pouch on his belt. Deacon walks closer, lowering his gun, and MacCready finally pulls out a stimpak. He yanks up the sleeve of Deacon’s sweater before Deacon gets one word into a protest. The soreness floods out of his shoulder all at once, and out of the small of his back, where the gun had crushed against him as he fell. He’d barely registered it under the rest.

MacCready tosses the stimpak somewhere into the corner of the room. But his hand lingers on Deacon’s forearm. He’s staring at Deacon’s shoulder, at the stains spattering the wool. Deacon turns his wrist, catching MacCready’s elbow and squeezing. MacCready swallows and lets him go. 

“Okay,” he says, swiping the back of his hand under his nose and then reaching down for his pack. “So you trigger the alarm, we jump down, book it for the clean room, shoot the robot, shoot anything else that tries to get in the way, and get out the damn — the door.” 

Deacon nods. “And hope that containment door holds.” 

“How about: don’t stick around to find out.”

“Works for me.”

MacCready adjusts the straps of his pack and settles his rifle forward. Deacon pulls on his own pack, his shoulder only giving him a dull pulse of pain before he moves the strap to a spot that doesn’t twinge. He walks back to the terminal, waits for MacCready to nod, and presses enter. 

An alarm blares to life. A yellow light flashes over the wall. MacCready grits his teeth at the noise, but leads the way out the door. 

The jump back down to the first floor lands them both in a puddle. It splashes up the side of Deacon’s jeans, and sloshes up over his shoes. He curls his lip but doesn’t stop, following MacCready at a run.

The robot is already speeding out of the clean room at them when they reach the first lab. MacCready raises his rifle and shoots her down in two hits, the only shot she manages to fire going wide and hitting the ceiling. She crashes to the floor, a heap of metal, and Deacon leaps over her to follow MacCready through the open security door. They barrel through the locker room and the kitchen, then out of the reception area and back through the main doors without stopping to look back, slamming them shut behind them. 

They’ve been stuck inside long enough for night to fall. The streetlights that had been lost in the sun when they arrived now flood the path to the sidewalk. It’s cold enough without the sun’s heat to draw a gasp out of Deacon when it hits him. MacCready doesn’t let him stop. When he starts to slow, MacCready’s hand clamps around his wrist and pulls. He drags Deacon down the road, keeping them running until their lungs burn. 

\----

Deacon’s legs give out next to an abandoned bank on the very edge of Cambridge, right on the river. MacCready sweeps the lobby, and once he’s satisfied, Deacon slumps into a dusty chair next to the reception desk and presses his fingers into the corners of his eyes.

“Fuck me,” he says into the cup of his palms.

MacCready paces in front of him. Even as he barely seems able to catch his breath, he doesn’t stop moving. He stalks from the blown-out windows to the desk and back again. His shoulders hitch high against his pack, like they had earlier, and his hands stay tight around his rifle. Distantly, Deacon thinks of some old educational movie he found in the library once about zoos, and the giant tiger it showed circling and circling in its pen, glaring out from the bars keeping it in. 

“Starlight is too far,” MacCready finally says, not even glancing over as he makes another restless circuit. “We’re not risking it in the dark.” 

“Okay,” Deacon says. He doesn’t bother trying to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. His chest is burning, and his shoulder still aches, even with the stimpak. He just wants a bed that won’t hurt to sleep on and some clean water to scrub his face. “Wherever you want.” 

MacCready finally looks at him. His pacing slows a little. “You should change.” 

“Yeah, I know, I need a damn bath, and—”

“No, I mean—” He frowns and looks around at the window frames surrounding them, and the empty street beyond. “I can’t—I can’t pretend tonight. I need… just, please, put on whatever disguise means we don’t have to. Please.” 

Deacon looks up, taken aback. He filters through the words carefully until it clicks. Put on whatever disguise means they don’t have to pretend they’re just friends. 

“Where is the closest settlement?” Deacon asks as he drags his pack closer and begins rummaging through the clothes stuffed inside. It’s not like they’re going to Goodneighbor, or Diamond City. Still, they can’t let their guard down, even in the smaller settlements. It’s too risky not to assume the Institute has eyes everywhere.

MacCready bends his wrist up and flips a couple dials on the PipBoy. After a moment, he says, “Greygarden. It’s under an hour if we’re careful. I don’t know if they finished the flophouse they were working on, but I don’t think they opened it to settlers yet, so… whatever’s there, no one will bother us.” 

Deacon nods. That’s easier. No synth infiltrators, at least. He pulls out a woolen beanie cap and a jacket he only wears when the cold dips too low. He pulls the sweater off, grimacing when his fingers brush a wet patch, and folds it so the stains won’t touch the rest of his clothes. Then he zips up the jacket around his t-shirt and tugs the beanie over his head. He wishes he had another pair of shoes somewhere in there too, the wet canvas is starting to chafe his toes. 

He looks up to find MacCready pacing again. Deacon pulls his pack back on his shoulders. 

“Lead the way, Bobby.” 

MacCready looks him over. Then he finds his hand and holds it tight.

\----

The flophouse is more finished than they expected. The robots lead them to it like they’re pulling open the doors of an Old World grand hotel, and then leave them blessedly alone. 

The nervous energy that kept MacCready pacing and marching all the way there seems to leave him all at once. They pick through a dinner of dry rations and jerky in what will, with a few more tweaks, be the kitchen, and MacCready just leans his elbows on the counter and doesn’t talk. Then they drift upstairs, looking through the rooms until they find one with a bed big enough for two. The walls still smell of freshly cut wood, and the blankets are a little musty, and thin. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. 

When they close the door, MacCready’s pack slides from his shoulders and he just… stills. Deacon plucks the straps of his own pack free, then his coat, watching MacCready out of the corner of his eye all the while. He drops the coat on top of his pack and waits for MacCready to move, to speak. He doesn’t. He just stares down at the bed. 

Deacon steps carefully into his sight line, ducking his head until he catches MacCready’s eye. MacCready blinks and looks at him, and then swallows, and drops his eyes to his shoes instead. Deacon reaches up and gently cups his face. MacCready finally moves, lifting his hand to wrap his fingers around Deacon’s wrists and hold them there.

“Hey,” Deacon says softly, leaning close. He brushes a kiss against MacCready’s cheekbone. MacCready doesn’t answer him. So Deacon just reaches one hand up slowly, sliding it out of MacCready’s grip, and pulls MacCready’s hat off. He tosses it toward the abandoned pack at their feet.

Then he reaches for the top button on MacCready’s duster, just laying his fingers there. MacCready looks up at him when he doesn’t move. 

“Let me?” Deacon asks, as soft as he had that morning. God, was it really only hours ago? 

MacCready’s throat bobs as he swallows, his eyes going soft at the edges, like he’s thinking of it, too. His voice scrapes in his throat, a cracked echo. “You don’t have to.” 

“Let me anyway?” 

MacCready’s hand goes tight around Deacon’s wrist and his head bows forward to hide his face. Deacon kisses the top of it, matted as his hair is with dried sweat. MacCready takes a shuddering breath, but says nothing else. So Deacon starts slipping the buttons of his coat open, one by one, ready to stop if MacCready pulls away. He doesn’t.

One-handed, Deacon tugs the duster out of MacCready’s belt. The scarf beneath unravels a little, the tattered ends swinging down into Deacon’s palm. Deacon unwinds it with a gentle pull, and slips it free. Then he coaxes MacCready into straightening again and letting go of his wrist so Deacon can push the duster off his shoulders. The dim light from the lamp on the dresser catches MacCready’s eyes as he lifts his head. Deacon doesn’t say anything about the shine in them, or the pulled-taut frown creasing his lips. He just sinks carefully to his knees, and starts working on his belt.

He loves doing this, normally. He loves the prelude that builds as he works, as he peels back every layer that separates them, remembering the code of clasps and catches. He loves the tension that simmers to a boil as he bares every inch of skin. It’s like a reunion every time the front door closes, every time they can stop the act. 

It’s not like that now. MacCready stands too still, and Deacon’s hands don’t linger. He pries away every strap and belt, works loose every button and snap, until a pile collects at his knees, and MacCready stands only in his undershirt, pants, and boots. Deacon guides him to sit on the edge of the bed, and then pulls one of MacCready’s booted feet to rest on his thigh. He starts plucking at the laces.

“You shouldn’t have to—” MacCready starts, and Deacon looks up. MacCready frowns, pursing his lips. “I should be—”

He just shakes his head instead of finishing. Deacon drops the laces and levers back up onto his knees between MacCready’s legs. He pulls MacCready’s head down until their foreheads rest together. MacCready draws in another shaky breath that Deacon feels fan out over his cheeks. They stay like that a moment. Then Deacon tilts his head, eyes darting up to search for any flicker of hesitation on MacCready’s face. Finding none, he leans forward and catches MacCready’s lips in a bare brush of a kiss, small and quick and soft, hardly there at all. MacCready shudders under Deacon’s hands. They meet again, one more short and shallow kiss, and then Deacon leans up to leave one against MacCready’s brow. 

He sinks back down then, ignoring the ache in his knees, and pushes up the hem of MacCready’s pant leg to finish unlacing his boot. He tugs it free of MacCready’s heel, and then the sock beneath, his fingertip pressing into a hole at the arch of MacCready’s foot. The other boot joins the first somewhere behind him. Then he reaches up higher, unfastening MacCready’s pants and pulling them gently down his thighs, until MacCready’s down to just his undershirt and briefs.

Finally, Deacon stands. He makes short work of his own clothes. He doesn’t draw it out. He just leaves them in a pile near his pack. Then he pulls out a can of purified water and wets the t-shirt, using it to scrub the worst of the grime and blood from his neck and his face, and to clean his sunglasses, which he leaves on the dresser. When he turns back, MacCready’s holding the blankets open. 

Deacon crawls in beside him, and MacCready pulls him in, wrapping his arms around Deacon’s bare shoulders. He runs gentle fingers over the sore spot where the feral gripped him, the spot that will bruise by morning. MacCready’s eyes find Deacon’s in the darkness. Then he tugs Deacon in closer, and Deacon tucks his face in against MacCready’s neck, letting himself be held. They don’t speak again. Eventually, the exhaustion begins to pull Deacon under, his eyes slipping closed to the soft rhythm of MacCready’s breathing, and the distant hum of the generator on the ground below them. 

\---

He sleeps in snatches, the darkness of the room bleeding into dreams he doesn’t know he’s having until he wakes from them, twitching in MacCready’s arms. MacCready never seems to shift, never turns, never stops holding onto Deacon’s back, even when Deacon’s arms loosen and fall away in sleep. And Deacon never quite settles, something uneasy and unnamed tugging him back out of every strange dream he sinks into. It isn’t until the fourth time he shakes awake that he realizes it’s too quiet. MacCready isn’t snoring.

Deacon looks up when it hits him, and finds MacCready looking back. Deacon’s brow bends. His voice crackles out of him when he says, “Bobby?”

“I’ve got you,” MacCready says, smoothing a hand down the back of Deacon’s head. “Sleep.” 

Deacon keeps frowning, and starts to say something else, but MacCready keeps stroking his head, and Deacon’s so tired. He buries his face against MacCready’s shoulder and dreams again.

In the morning, he wakes like he slept, in pieces. He wakes first when he feels MacCready shift away, his arms finally sliding free. Deacon mumbles something he means to be a question, and MacCready tells him to sleep again. Deacon dozes, rousing again when MacCready sits on the edge of the bed, tugging his boots up his ankles. He lays a kiss against Deacon’s temple, and then the door opens and shuts. The third time Deacon wakes, the sun is coming up. He can see the orange streaks crossing the sky. He sits up. 

His shoulder twinges. He looks down to find the bruises he expected, blooming purple and yellow above his collarbone. The sloppy shadow of bloated fingers. He presses it carefully and winces when the ache sharpens. Then he looks over at the empty tangle of blankets MacCready left behind. He smooths a hand over the top. It’s almost cold.

He dresses in the first things he finds in his pack and zips the coat up tight to his chin. When he opens the door, he stands for a moment in the hallway and listens. The wind catches a door down toward the end and makes it creak open a little wider. Deacon crosses to catch it, and climbs the stairs he finds beyond. 

It opens into what will be a bar, eventually. It’s level with the lower part of the highway, and currently open to the air. A wide balcony with a wooden railing extends out over the fields below. There’s only a single table, so far, and no chairs, but the bar counter’s been built and polished. 

He finds MacCready leaning on the railing, the table pulled up close to his hip. He’s got a cigarette between his fingers. A few other crushed butts line an ashtray at the table’s edge. When he looks over his shoulder at the sound of Deacon’s footsteps, his cheeks are wind-burned pink. He gives Deacon a tight grimace of a smile, and takes another drag.

“You didn’t sleep,” Deacon says. It isn’t a question. MacCready breathes out, and the wind catches the smoke and carries it out toward the hill beyond the greenhouse. He shakes his head.

Deacon steps closer, but stops shy of the railing when he sees how far down the ground is. He settles himself to one side of the table instead, forcing his eyes to stay on MacCready’s bowed shoulders. He reaches out, and rests a hand between them. He can feel that the duster’s sitting loose, not even a belt to hold it in tight, and no chest armor to fill the bulk. Just the scarf, knotted around his neck. 

MacCready takes one last drag, and then crushes the cigarette into the ash of all the others. He turns to face Deacon, and Deacon’s hand falls back to his side. The windburn stretches from one of MacCready’s cheeks to the other, reddening the bridge of his nose between.

“I can’t stop seeing it,” he says, shutting his eyes. “The way it lunged at you, the way it—” He cuts off, his face twisting. It must make his cheeks sting.

Deacon starts to reach for him again, but before his hand lands, MacCready says, “I just keep thinking it would have been Anthony. It would have been him, completely alone. No one watching his back. Or if you’d gone without me...”

Deacon slowly drops his hand. He hadn’t thought of that at all. 

MacCready sighs, and when he opens his eyes, it’s to stare at Deacon’s chest. “They’re asking a lot of you guys.” 

Deacon frowns. “Who?”

“The—” MacCready pauses, cutting a glance over his shoulder. He lowers his voice a little, just enough to be heard over the wind. “The Railroad. Desdemona.”

Deacon thins his lips. “That’s just… how it is? This isn’t an easy job, we all know that going in. No easier than what you do, with settlement calls.”

“It’s not — I know that. It’s just… you’re doing an awful lot of risky work for someone that bites your head off every time you go back there and doesn’t appreciate it at all,” MacCready says.

“It’s not like that,” Deacon says, frowning. “She’s not — Desdemona might call the shots, but I’m not doing this because she ordered me to. Anthony’s not either. I’ve seen a few people come and go where she’s standing now.”

“Yeah, but—” MacCready looks away, twisting his lips. “Look, I just — Anthony would’ve gone in there alone, and maybe died there, for a cause he’s sacrificed a hell of a lot for. And she can’t even believe he’s still loyal.”

Deacon’s frown deepens. “Bobby—”

“He doesn’t talk about it a lot, but… the Old World, the army? They did that to him too. He’d say it better, but they… you know. Questioned his loyalty. Kept him down. Because he looked like ‘the enemy.’” He spits the phrase with a curl of his lip. “Even though that’s exactly why they picked him to do what he did. The… covert stuff, or whatever. He just… he doesn’t deserve to go through that again, not after everything he’s done.” MacCready finally looks up at him. “Neither do you.” 

Deacon swallows. “It’s… it’s different with me. She’s not—”

“You keep making excuses for her,” MacCready says, “and I… she doesn’t deserve it, Deacon.”

Deacon stiffens. MacCready looks down at the table. When Deacon can’t find anything to say, MacCready says, “Look, I get it. I know this is important to you. But maybe it’s not worth risking your life for someone that’s more interested in demanding you fall in line than caring what you’re risking to do it.”

Deacon shakes his head. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not doing it for her. Anthony’s not doing it for her. It’s about the synths. It’s always been about the synths. Dez can… do what she does. But that’s not the point. I did what I did yesterday for the chance to save these people. If I had died, it would’ve been worth it to get thirteen more lives saved, in the end. To make it easier for someone else to finish what I started.” 

MacCready closes his eyes. His jaw goes tight, and his fingers curl into fists at his side. “You’d sacrifice your life for that. For them, the… the synths.”

“Yes,” Deacon says. “If it came down to that? Yes.”

MacCready goes quiet. His fists tighten. 

“This is a lot bigger than me, or Dez, or Anthony. And if… if some piece of shit like me can make my life mean something by giving it up to make sure of bunch of other people—”

“Your life already means something,” MacCready says, his eyes flying open.

Deacon falters. “I didn’t mean—”

“Look, all that… ‘sacrificing yourself for a better future’ stuff? That’s what got us _here_ ,” MacCready says, spreading out his hands to encompass the broken highway. “That’s the crap they put on posters to get people to join the Old World army. It didn’t save anything. That world is dead. And those synths… look, their lives don’t mean more than yours. They don’t deserve to live more than you.” 

Deacon slips his hands into his pockets and ducks his head. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

MacCready shakes his head. They stand there like that, letting the wind rattle their coats, for a few minutes. Deacon shrugs his higher, hiding his mouth behind the zipper. MacCready won’t look at him. 

Finally, so quiet Deacon barely hears him over the wind, MacCready says, “I just… I don’t want to lose you to this.” 

Deacon swallows again. He can’t promise that. MacCready knows it. But Deacon knows that fear, too, that bone-deep, ice-old fear, and the way it burrows in hard. He knows it so well. And the fact that MacCready is that afraid _for_ him… 

Deacon doesn’t know what else to do. What else to say. So he just steps forward, opening his arms and reaching for MacCready’s waist. MacCready stays stiff for a moment, but lets himself be pulled into Deacon’s chest. Slowly, he relaxes, winding his arms around Deacon’s neck. His nose is cold against Deacon’s cheek. Deacon holds on tighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you needed to skip the panic attack, the main point of it was: while trying to comfort and calm MacCready down, Deacon realizes that the reason he's panicking, and the reason he was so snippy the whole way through, isn't just because ferals dredge up bad memories but because he's afraid of reliving them, of one of them killing Deacon like they killed Lucy, and this was too close a call for comfort and it triggered Mac badly. 
> 
> Notes:  
> 1) So fun fact, Chapter 4 of _A Line in the Sand_ is where MacCready's panic attack in the traffic tunnel that Deacon flashes back to here happens. It wasn't an intentional parallel but I thought it was cool that it worked out that way. 
> 
> 2) I know you can't shoot down the turrets in the game, or at least not until they're active, but there's no reason for that in the story and also that always annoyed the crap out of me so. MY PLAYGROUND NOW.
> 
> Chapter 5's draft is finished and will go up once I have Chapter 6 drafted. I'd like to do another scene for Another Shore, the ALITS MacCready POV scene collection I started up, as well, and start poking at an Anthony/Preston fic, so I'd estimate Chapter 5 to be ready either late in the month or at the very beginning of April. But go easy on me if things change. Mean time, hope you all are staying safe and healthy.


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